The Fatal Turnabout
by Shikola Krasno . Melody Canta
Summary: Ten years ago, Phoenix faced the most difficult trial of his life and buried his darkest demon in the past where she would never be able to hurt anyone again, or so he thought. A threatening message and a mysterious package mark the return of the biggest monster the defense attorney and his crazy company ever faced, and she's hungry for revenge. Last time she played by the rules...
1. The Gift of Turnabout

**The Fatal Turnabout**

**A Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Story**

All characters are property of CAPCOM. The plot was heavily influenced by Hudson Soft. We don't own anything in this other than the final plotline and idea.

FULL SUMMARY :: Ten years ago, Phoenix Wright faced the most difficult trial of his life and buried his darkest demon in the past where she would never be able to hurt anyone again, or so he thought. A threatening message and a mysterious package mark the return of the biggest monster the defense attorney and his crazy company ever faced, and she's hungry for revenge. Last time she played by the rules of their world, this time they'll play by the rules of hers. When the living walk among the dead, it's only a matter of time until they join their ranks.

Rated T for intense situations, violence, mentions of suicide, death, and just general horror.

**Author's Note:** This is a collaboration between Melody Canta and Shikola Krasno, so we'll both be writing different sections. This is a strange mix of horror and a little of everything else. We're flexible. This is heavily influenced by Hudson Soft's _Calling _(which you can find on both the Wii and PC, so if you haven't checked it out, do!) Don't worry if you haven't played it though; we find that most people haven't. This fanfiction isn't dependent on knowing the game, though it'll be more enjoyable if you have. We're not strictly sticking to the plotlines of either games, so keep reading, and this might surprise you. We're excited to get started, so onward with the prologue!

* * *

**Prologue :: The Gift of Turnabout**

It started out as a mostly normal day at the Wright Anything Agency. Phoenix was finishing up paperwork from his most recent trial, the murder of a parrot named Helfrich von Something-that-meant-a-lot-of-paperwork-for-Edgeworth. The prosecutor, already irritated with losing the case, had been furious when he realized that his ringtone was now Helfrich saying "Not guilty. _Squak_. No, not guilty." How his face had reddened when he received his first phone call, right inside the courtroom lobby after the trial, was the only thing making this bearable.

Phoenix was on page three of fifteen when his phone beeped. A text message. He reached across the desk, relieved for the distraction, and immediately sighed when he saw what it was.

"_OMG HI GUYS!"_

For the three days Maya had been in Los Angeles for her visit, she'd been attempting to learn the intricacies of group chats. Of course, to even get into the intricacies, she had to learn to send one to begin with. Hence the seven, "Did I do it?" messages he had received recently.

He smirked and typed back, _"Think you've done it this time?"_

A smaller chat bubble popped up under his, a purple one rather than the green and blue bubbles his and Maya's were. _"Who is this?"_

Blue bubble. Maya. _"Really, Edgeworth? You don't remember me? You're never getting a Christmas present from me ever again. D: Especially not a Limited Edition Steel Samurai figurine."_

Phoenix snorted. He and Edgeworth were the two she decided to start her group chat with? Really?

Well, maybe not. A pink bubble had entered the conversation. Now that four people were in the chat, everyone's names showed next to their messages. _"Larry Butz: Mayaaaaaaaa! What's up, little lady?"_

Phoenix blinked in surprise. Larry too?

Oh god. How many people had Maya added to the conversation?

"_Miles Edgeworth: Maya Fey?"_

With a sigh, Phoenix put his paperwork aside and focused fully on his phone.

* * *

Conversation: Group Chat (7)

_Maya Fey_: OMG HI GUYS

_Phoenix Wright_: Think you've done it this time?

_Miles Edgeworth_: Who is this?

_Maya Fey_: Really, Edgeworth? You don't remember me? You're never getting a Christmas present from me ever again. D: Especially not a Limited Edition Steel Samurai figurine.

_Larry Butz_: Mayaaaaaaaa! What's up, little lady?

_Miles Edgeworth_: Maya Fey?

_Phoenix Wright_: Maya, if you've added Franziska, I'm leaving.

_Franziska von Karma_: What was that, Wright?

_Phoenix Wright_: Nothing! Good afternoon, Franziska.

_Maya Fey_: Wow, you guys all type so fast! o_o Hi Larry! And Edgeworth, I'm ignoring you. D:

_Athena Cykes_: Hi everyone! Oh wow, this is so exciting~ Can I add people too, Maya?

_Miles Edgeworth_: Please don't.

_Maya Fey_: Sure! C:

_21 contacts added to conversation._

_Phoenix Wright_: Athena!

_Apollo Justice_: 21 is a bit much, don't you think?

_Old Windbag_: is my edgeypoo online?

_Miles Edgeworth_: Maya!

_Maya Fey_: Sorry, Edgeworth. I don't know how to take her out of the chat. D:

_Larry Butz_: The more the merrier, right?

_Miles Edgeworth_: No.

_?_: You all will suffer.

_Phoenix Wright_: Maya? Who's that?

_Maya Fey_: I don't know. D: I didn't add anyone else. Athena?

_Athena Cykes_: I don't know who it is either.

_Franziska von Karma_: You! State your name and occupation!

_?_: I will take my revenge.

* * *

Phoenix blinked, slightly alarmed. Maya had a knack for getting into trouble, and adding someone who wanted her dead into a group chat was mild compared to some of the other stuff she'd accidentally done.

Almost as soon as he had put the phone down, it started ringing.

This was how horror movies started. First you got the message, and then the call with the heavy breathing and whispered "You have seven days." His breathing ramped up, panicked despite himself.

There's no such thing as ghosts. There's no such thing as ghosts. There's no such thing as—

Wait a minute.

Luckily, the caller ID flashed across the screen a second later. Larry. He let out the breath he'd been holding, a bit embarrassed, and picked up the phone. "Texting wasn't enough for you?"

"Nick! Meet me at the Detention Center, pronto!"

"Huh? Larry, what's wrong?"

"Just hurry!"

Phoenix sighed, wondering whether he would be defending Larry or his girlfriend this time.

* * *

"Make sure to watch over him this time, okay?" the prison guard said. Phoenix sighed. He should have expected it when Larry didn't spam the group chat repeatedly. According to the police, his friend had received a package from a "secret admirer", and made enough racket for the neighbors to believe a domestic dispute had started. Someone had called the police, and when they arrived, Larry had shoved the package in their faces. Leading, of course, to his arrest.

He supposed he could count himself lucky that the prison guard recognized Larry enough to realize the dope hadn't meant any harm.

"The bomb squad checked the package and they didn't find anything. You still want it?"

Larry beamed. "I want to open it now!"

Phoenix and the guard exchanged glances, but the guard finally shrugged and nodded. "If he starts destroying stuff, at least we won't have to bring him far."

Larry gave a rather feminine squeal before tearing into the box. Styrofoam peanuts flew everywhere as he searched, finally pulling out a small black object. "Wow! It's . . . it's . . . it's the other half of a heart! Some lady has given me her love! Nick, look!"

He thrust it out towards the attorney, and Phoenix peered over the cup of his hand to see a black . . . magatama? Phoenix took his out, still glowing green with spiritual power. "Larry, that's not a heart. See the hole in it?"

Larry blinked. "It's just like yours!" He paused for a second, going pale. "Nick, please don't tell me—"

"NO! No no no no no no no! Maya gave me this one."

"So Maya sent me—?"

Phoenix shook his head. "I don't think so. Why would she have sent it in the mail?" And why was it black? With the whole black psyche-lock thing, this seemed concerning, at least. "I don't know about this, Larry. Maybe you should get rid of it."

"No! Don't be jealous, Nick!"

"I'm not—"

"Jealous."

"No, I—"

"Jealous."

Phoenix sighed. Obviously, Larry wasn't going to listen. "Anyways, I got you out of jail. Can I go home now?"

Larry's face fell. "Nick?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I—Can I stay at your place tonight?"

"Why?"

Larry scratched the back of his head. "It's just . . . with that strange text message and all, and the guard said my neighbors are kind of mad at me . . ."

Sigh. "Fine. Anything to keep you from owing me more for bail."

"Thanks, Nick! You're the best!"

* * *

Conversation: Group Chat (28)

_Larry Butz_: Party at Nick's office!

_Maya Fey_: WHAT?! Nick, how could you not invite me? ;o;

_Phoenix Wright_: WHAT? NO, NO THERE IS NOT! LARRY!

_Athena Cykes_: Yay! I knew something great was going to come out of this group chat!

_Phoenix Wright_: NO!

_Apollo Justice_: Maya, don't feel left out. He didn't tell me either.

_Maya Fey_: God, Nick! You left out some of your closest friends! Now I'm ignoring you too. D: But I'll be there.

_Phoenix Wright_: Maya, I didn't tell you because THERE IS NO PARTY!

_Trucy Wright_: Oh, can we pleaaaaaaaaase, Daddy?

_Apollo Justice_: Trucy, how long have you been in this conversation?

_Trucy Wright_: For a while. C: Pleaaaaaaaase, Daddy? Pretty please? With sugar on top? And sprinkles? And MAGIIIIIIIIIIIIC?

_Phoenix Wright_: Fine. Just a few people though. And only for a few hours!

* * *

Somehow a few hours had morphed into a sleepover at the office. Complete with horror movies, courtesy of Athena ("well, we all got that creepy message, right? Now we can watch scary movies and laugh!"). They were on the first half of the first movie when Phoenix's eyes started drifting closed. "I think I'm gonna go to bed," he said.

"Nick, you're such an old man. You can't even get through the first movie?" Maya asked.

"Nope. And I have no desire to either."

"Daddy, do you know where the flashlight is?"

He racked his brain before shaking his head. "Why?"

"In case we tell scary stories afterwards!"

He thought for a moment before tossing the magatama towards his daughter. "This is the best I can do. Sorry, Maya."

She shrugged. "I use mine to find the bathroom in the night."

"Anyways, good night, everyone. Keep it down and try not to kill each other please."

They all nodded. "Good night!"

It wasn't until he was in bed and drifting off to sleep that he realized he hadn't mentioned Larry's black magatama to Maya. Oh well, he supposed. It could probably wait until morning.

* * *

**A/N (Melody) :: And the prologue is done!**

**A few administrative things before I go into the prologue and talk about it. As mentioned above, Shikola and I are co-authoring this story, which meant that we had to break things up somehow. If you've ever played the Calling, you know that the game is broken up into sections for each character. We used that to break up our chapters. I'll be doing the Rin and Shin chapters, and Shikola will be doing the Chiyo and Makoto chapters. Of course, that means that the first few chapters will be all me. I've written the prologue as well, though I won't be writing all of the grey area chapters.**

**Onto the fun part! We're super excited to be writing this, and since this is really my first collaboration, I'm thrilled to be working with Shikola. We really hope you guys enjoy this, and I'll try to get the next chapter up and ready ASAP!**

**Read and Review?**

**[Edit: Changed summary 1/14/14]**


	2. The Possession

**Chapter One :: The Possession**

Cell phones, a bathroom, three teenage girls, and a group text message. Larry Butz liked to think that he was a fairly easygoing guy, able to adapt to just about everything. The last hour, however, tested even him.

And where was he now?

It was a bedroom, though he was on the floor rather than the bed. Of course, it wasn't the first time he had ever slept on the floor. This was a pretty comfy rug though. There were two dressers and a nightstand with the ringing rotary phone and a cell phone on top of it. He took a few steps forward, still trying to process everything, simultaneously realizing he should answer the phone and the phone ceasing its constant ringing.

CRACK! The light bulb shattered, bathing the room in darkness. Larry screamed, pressing himself against the opposite wall. A few moments of silence passed. Nothing moved. Nothing happened. He let out a breath, starting to walk towards the nightstand.

The cell phone started ringing now.

He looked around, listening for the sign of anyone coming to answer it. Everything was quiet. Not a sound besides the ring of the phone.

He walked over to it, picking it up and flipping it open. "Hello?"

There was a raspy rattling, almost like someone was trying to breathe but had waterlogged lungs. When there had been silence for long enough that he was about to say hello again, there was a long sigh, and then, _"Even in death, the salt remains._" The voice had a dead, monotone quality about it, as if it had been expelled in a groan rather than breath.

"Uh, what? Hello?" But the dial tone had already returned, the caller gone.

Larry shut the phone, looking over his shoulder in paranoia. Where was this place? What did he mean, "the salt remains"?

What was going on?

He went to the door, testing the lock. The door swung open, almost of its own accord, and he crept out, looking around. It was still dark, but he could make out a door at the end of the hall. "Hello?" he called out, opening it.

It was a bathroom, complete with a toilet and shower. Tentatively, he flushed the toilet, a little surprised when it actually flushed, and perhaps more unnerved by that than normal. The sink worked too, though the shower didn't. He turned to leave, pausing when something moved to his left. He turned, looking out the window, when—

"DON'T IGNORE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

A man's face was pressed against the glass, though it was colorless and twisted into a horrifying scream. The hairbuns on the sides of his head were extended into long spirals, also white. In fact, the man was entirely white.

"Not another one!" Larry shouted, tripping as he ran out of the room and down the hallway. He didn't stop until he reached a closed door at the end of the L-shaped hallway, pulling at it in panic. The lock rattled, but didn't break.

Footsteps echoed behind him. Larry turned, coming face-to-face with yet another ghost, this one with a bowl of noodles overturned on his head. "Don't go in there," he growled, and before Larry could do anything, the man attacked, wrapping his hands around Larry's neck.

He thrashed, trying to get away from noodlebowl man, finally breaking the hold and gasping for air. He cowered against the door and the man vanished, leaving Larry alone and confused.

The door clicked, swinging open on its own again, and Larry darted inside, hoping for a respite. There was a short staircase, and it was dark, but he could see a flashlight in the dim light from the attic window. He turned it on and waved it around, lighting the boxes and the few dolls populating the room. He went to the nearest one, realizing as he came closer that it looked quite familiar. A short, portly nun in full robes reminiscent of Maya's. He picked it up, realizing too late that it was made of noodles. Slimy, cold noodles, stiff from the salt congealing on the surface. The base, made of plastic, had the inscription, "_To my darling Bikini."_

Bikini. The nun from that mountain. Why was there a noodle doll of her in this house?

Seriously. Who was so obsessed with the jolly woman that they made a doll of noodles in her likeness? The more he thought about it, the more his stomach churned.

"I can't do this," he muttered, beginning to back out of the room. "No way no way no way. Let me out of here." He fled back to the bedroom, perching on the side of the bed. "What's going on here?" he asked, glancing around warily. "I want to go home. Please, just tell me how to get home."

The cell phone rang.

He picked it up, almost disbelieving that the answer could be so easy.

"_They will never betray. They will always be loyal."_ It was the same voice as before, rasping and growling. And, he realized, the same voice as the noodlebowl guy who had attacked him earlier. He screamed, dropping the cell phone.

On one of the dressers, something rattled and gave off a series of high-pitched giggles.

He screamed again, running back to the attic. Nothing bad had happened here yet. Nothing had chased him or popped up and tried to kill him, and yes, the Bikini doll was creepy, but it was tolerable as long as he didn't touch it.

He moved through the stacks of boxes, trying to find a chair or something to sit on and wait it out, eventually coming to a sliding canvas door. He opened it a crack, finding that something was blocking it from opening any farther, and peeked inside.

Oh god. Oh no. There was a man sprawled on the floor, three lines of red glowing like a beacon in the dark. Was he dead? Maybe he was just sleeping, Larry attempted to justify to himself, just too tired to go down to the bedroom. All of the creepy phone calls, all of the people, they weren't here for him, but for the sleeping man. He opened his mouth, shining his flashlight inside in an attempt to wake the man, but something fell behind him before he could. He whipped around, his light darting around the room until it fell on the single doll head on the ground. "Is that it?" he asked, laughing at himself. "I guess I just need to calm dow—"

High-pitched giggles erupted from behind him.

He stepped back, whipping around to see salt dolls crowded at the cracked door, rattling as they filled the small open crevice. He blinked, already starting to back away, and suddenly, noodles shot out, wrapping around the walls and shooting towards him.

He didn't need an invitation. He ran, hands cartwheeling out in front of him as he threw open the door and tried to shine the flashlight in front of him. The bathroom. The ghost was outside of the bathroom, pressed against the glass. It couldn't get in. He would be safe there. He would be safe—

Noodlebowl man shot up in front of him, hands wrapping around his throat again.

Nonononononononononono. This couldn't be happening. He had to get out of here. Had to get out of this house. What about his secret admirer? He would never find out who it was or why she had sent him that heart-shaped jewel . . .

The thought brought on a surge of adrenaline, and he got a hand between noodlebowl man's elbows, breaking the choke. The man vanished, and Larry rounded the corner, stopping short when he realized the door for the bathroom had completely vanished.

Two options. Go back and face the noodles or get phone calls and deal with rattling doll heads.

He chose the latter.

He slammed the door shut behind him, panting. The beam of the flashlight showed that he was alone, and he sank down to the floor. Talk about crazy. All of this, all of the ghosts and the dolls and the phone calls.

Speaking of phone calls, something was ringing.

He hesitated, looking at the cell phone in his hand, but it was silent. No, this was the rotary phone on the bedside table again.

He could just not answer. There had been a lot of weird stuff so far related to the telephones, and he wasn't really excited for his next chat with Noodlebowl man. Then again, the weird chats could be exclusive to the cell phone (which he had resolved to never pick up again; it didn't matter if the weird stuff was with him or the unconscious/sleeping dude, he didn't want to hear about it anymore). And it could be something good on the other line. Maybe his secret admirer was calling with the way out of this place.

He picked up the phone.

There was a soft giggle, not completely unlike the dolls', but gentler and more feminine. _"Gotcha."_

"Huh?" And then his brain completely caught up with his mouth. "Hey babe. You sound pretty. Maybe you and I—"

There was another of the girlish giggles, this time not over the phone but right behind him.

He turned, dropping the phone. Behind him was a woman, young and beautiful, with her hair in braids like a halo and a beatific smile. Butterflies fluttered around her, moving with her even as she took a few steps towards him. He swallowed the lump that was suddenly in his throat. "You, uh, are you an angel? 'Cause I think Heaven's missing one."

She shook her head, the smile still on her face. With her right hand, she held out the black magatama he'd woken without. "I think you're missing this."

His eyes widened. "You're my secret admirer?"

The woman took a few more steps towards him, until they were nearly nose-to-nose. "Yes. And believe me, we'll be together forever now." Her fingers closed around the magatama and suddenly, disembodied hands rose up out of the ground and moved towards him.

"W—Wait! Huh? What's going—?" The hands grasped his arms and legs, pulling him back against the wall as noodles started invading the room. They ran over his neck, reaching his face and smothering him with cold, slimy, salt-crusted noodles. He screamed, hoping that someone, anyone would come save him. The noodles invaded his mouth, and with a final wail, his lungs emptied of their remaining air. His body spasmed, hand dropping the flashlight, but resistance was futile.

The last thing he remembered was the sound of the rotary phone ringing mixed with the woman's soft, tinkling laughter.

* * *

**A/N: **

**Shikola Krasno ::**

**Hey guys! Sooo I didn't write this:D. But we figured that since my chapters won't be showing up for a while it wouldn't hurt to note in a little early. Enjoying our cruel story thus far? Or I guess Canta's cruel story:/. Maybe I can help clarify a few things. For those of you who haven't played Calling (and I'm sure many haven't), this is NOT going to be in chronological order just yet. That may sound weird-and come to think of it, the Shin (Larry) chapter always seemed kind of unnecessary to me-but it's sort of used to set the tone. In our case it's used to show that, while this is still full of amusing cameos and comical moments (did you recognize everyone?) it's actually a dark story and it doesn't get lighter until the VERY end! I say "VERY" because, well, stick around;). Can't spoil anymore. There's at least one more chapter before I make my debut in this story. Only hint I'll give for that is that Godot fans should definitely stick around!**

**Melody Canta ::**

**Thank god for having a co-author who is a decent beta reader. Otherwise we might have had some very interesting things in this chapter and the next. Most related to the non-chronological order of this chapter. As Shikola mentioned, this isn't necessarily in chronological order, but I believe that this chapter and the next are the only two where there is an inconsistency (and you'll see it as soon as you read the next chapter. Believe me, while playing the game, I was lost for a while too). I'll point it out in the next chapter's author's note, in case you somehow missed it.  
**

**As Shikola sort of implied, this story started out in a very different place from where it's ending up. Originally it was going to be comical, but, uh, our natural inclinations towards angst and drama came out, I guess. So, while it'll still have some humor, it's going to be dark, dark, dark, dark, DARK. No worries though, right? We're still working to make sure it's enjoyable.  
**

**And we want to know what characters you recognize! Please tell us! I'm worried we're not giving enough context for some!**

**Anyways, next chapter is still mine. Sigh. I can't guarantee it being ridiculously fast, because The Awakening is a LONG chapter. But I'll have it up as soon as possible.**

**Read and Review?**


	3. The Awakening

**Chapter Two :: The Awakening**

Indistinct images flashed across her mind, quick and defined by nothing more than color and broad shapes. A snowy mountain. A dagger. A paper napkin.

And blood.

Maya shot up, panting heavily. Her hand clutched at the front of her robe, eventually relaxing over her heart as she realized it hadn't been real. "That dream . . . I haven't had that one for a while." More than seven years had passed since Misty Fey's death, and the nightmares had all but stopped a few years ago. She wiped at the sweat beading up on her forehead. She'd just get a glass of water and then go back to bed—

This wasn't the Wright Anything Agency. Where was she?

She stood, glancing around. It was a classroom, she supposed, with the blackboards on the walls and tables placed in meticulously straight rows. In the back of the room, there was a baby grand piano and a drum set. She walked closer, squinting in the dark, and tapped on the snare tentatively. It rattled, but otherwise acted like a drum would normally act.

The piano was a different story. She plucked at a few keys, but something didn't sound right (not that she was an expert; Mia had once tried to teach her to play piano, but it hadn't amounted to much more than irritation for both parties). She hammered on the same one a few times.

It played different notes. On the same key. She might have been a beginner at playing piano, but she was almost certain that was a logical impossibility.

Still, it was kind of cool.

She played the two songs she knew (chopsticks and Mary Had a Little Lamb), thrilled when they sounded far different from what she was used to. And then she started playing random keys for the fun of it. Nick would get a kick out of this. If only she knew where she was, she'd take him to see it sometime. Besides, he couldn't sound much worse playing this one than he normally did.

The light switch was on the opposite side of the piano, so she skirted the instrument after deciding she couldn't derive much more enjoyment from it and flicked the indicator.

No light. The power must be out. A shiver ran up her spine at the thought. Unfamiliar place, no power . . . talk about creepy.

Priority number one: find a light.

There didn't seem to be much else in this classroom other than a guitar in a glass case. She pulled on the strings a few times until one snapped. After that, it seemed like a good idea to get out of there. After all, she didn't want to be found in there with the guitar string still in her hand.

She'd no sooner opened the door than music began playing in the hallway. The tune was familiar, but she couldn't quite place it. What she did know was that if music was playing, someone else had to have been playing it, which meant someone else had to be there. Maya moved towards the noise, seeing a blinking green light on the floor. "A cell phone?" she asked, picking it up and examining it. There was nothing out of the ordinary about it other than the fact that it was still ringing. She flipped it open and put it up to her ear. "Hello?"

"HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Maya yelped and moved the phone away. Who shouted over the phone?

"YOU HAVE MY PHONE, MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN! I'm coming to get it. O-k-a-y?" Whoever it was seemed to have multiple personality disorder, because they had gone from screaming to cutesy in no time at all. Before she could answer, the other person hung up.

"Uh, sounds good," she said weakly, flipping the phone closed and looking around. It seemed she wasn't alone here, which was a bit of a relief. This school was creepy. And dark. Besides, if they got separated, it would be easy enough to find this other person. All they would have to do was shout and it was doubtful there would be anywhere she couldn't hear it from.

Of course, there was a problem in the logic the other person had presented. If they were planning on getting their phone, they needed to know where Maya was. She looked at the call log, but it was mysteriously empty. Luckily, the other person solved the problem for her. The phone rang again.

"I'm on the first floor. In the hallway. I'M COMING TO GET MY PHONE, MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!"

"Should, I, uh, come to y—" The clicking noise of the other person hanging up again made her cut off. Maybe whoever it was knew where they had left their phone originally or something.

Besides, it wasn't like she really knew where she was. Maybe all of the classrooms in this school had pianos and drum sets. She'd never know if she didn't look.

She'd only taken a few steps when the phone rang again.

"I'm at the staircase LANDIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING! On. The. Second. Floor." Once again the person hung up before Maya could say anything.

"Honestly, what's the point of calling when you don't wait for the other person to say anything back?" she asked herself rhetorically before sighing and taking a few more steps.

_Yip yip yip yip yip. Yip yip._

Was there a dog somewhere? Maya entered the classroom on her left, which looked as normal as any other classroom she'd ever seen: desks, blackboards, little cubbies for belongings . . .

And a little dog.

"Yip yip yip! HELLO!"

Apparently the dog talked.

It was a cute little thing, a Pomeranian if she wasn't mistaken, with caramel colored fur and big black eyes. It ran around her in circles, finally standing on its hind legs to paw at her knees. "Well, aren't you a cutie? What's your name?" she asked, kneeling down to scratch the pup on its head.

"HELLO! I'm Missile!"

So she hadn't been delusional. He could speak.

Interesting . . .

"Hello." She tried to pick him up, but put him back down when he squirmed. "What are you doing in a place like this?"

"Saying hello!" Obviously. What had she been thinking?

Maya nodded and opened her mouth to say something, but the cell phone rang again before she could. "Just one second, okay?"

Missile started barking as soon as the other person started talking (presumably to say hello to them as well), but Maya could still hear the "I'm on the staircase on the third floor! I'm coming, so don't m-o-v-e, okay?"

This time, she didn't wait to be hung up on. "Okay, Missile. Want to meet a new friend?"

"Of course! I just love to say HELLO to everyone!" The little dog started to hop around and yip to prove his enthusiasm, and Maya sighed. Forget the mystery person on the other end of the line; there was no way she could lose Missile with the incessant barking. Besides, he'd come find her eventually just to say hello.

"Do you know where the staircase is?"

"Ummmmmmm . . . no!"

They could at least try to find it, if nothing else. "Okay, let's go."

Together, the spirit medium and the dog walked down the hallway. Maya noted three more classrooms and a bathroom before they saw the glowing green stair sign as the path came to a T. The stairs were just around the corner, and Maya made an attempt to go towards them, but Missile bounded down the hall and started barking at a nearby door. "Missile? Did you find something?"

The door he was barking at was beat up. White paint had been gouged by something sharp to reveal the underlying wood in places. There was a crack that widened into a hole at the bottom, but it wasn't big enough for either Maya or Missile to fit through. The frosted glass window was broken at a corner, force causing long tendrils of damage to radiate from the hole. Some sort of weird blue light emanated from inside.

"HELLO! HELLO!" Missile shouted between yips.

Someone had to be in there.

Maya pulled on the handle, but the door was locked, so she peered into the hole in the glass instead.

It was just as dark inside the room as the rest of the school, but somehow, she could still see two people clearly. They seemed to glow white with a supernatural force, defining their school uniforms. The man, tall and broad-shouldered, held something long and thin in his left arm. The girl—or at least she assumed it was a girl—had a cardboard box over half of her body, and a skirt on the other half. They were talking about something, but it was too quiet for her to hear. And then, before her eyes, they started to fade. She blinked, and it was like they had never been there at all.

She moved, changing her view of the room when—

Two white, beady eyes popped in front of her view, the white cardboard box blocking the rest of the hole. She screamed, stepping back as Missile continued to bark.

And that was when she realized there was heavy breathing behind her. The barking suddenly stopped, and she glanced over to where the small dog had been, but he was nowhere to be found. "Missile?" she asked, turning slowly.

A small but thin man was behind her, looking just as opaque as the students in the classroom. He wore a school uniform, but also a headband and apron that were stained with some sort of splattered liquid. "MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN! That's my p-h-o-n-e." He waggled his finger as he spelled out "phone," and then he tackled her.

She fell hard, her back slamming against the tile floor. The man had taken hold of her arms, using them to drag her back up.

With a move she'd learned from Athena, she punched him square in the nose. The minute he'd careened back and disappeared, she ran.

She'd made it almost to the music room when he appeared in front of her again. He rushed at her, knocking her down. He was saying something, but the sound of blood pulsing in her ears made it impossible for her to say what. She knocked him off of her within seconds, and he vanished again.

The cell phone in her hand vibrated. She flipped it open, still running down the hall. There was a picture of the green stair sign. Maybe Missile had gone down there. Or maybe there was something that would keep her safe. A katana, for instance.

She was only feet away from the stairs when the man attacked again, but she was ready for him this time. As soon as he ran at her, she stepped to the side, sprinting for the stairs. She rounded the second set, hearing his panting behind her, and . . .

He vanished from the stairway.

She breathed a sigh of relief, sinking down on the bottom step.

Ghosts. That was what she had seen and had attacked her. There were ghosts in this school.

So why was she here?

Maybe this was all a nightmare. She pinched herself. No luck. She was stuck here until she could find the exit.

There was a "3" painted on the stairwell door, so she supposed she must be on the third floor. That meant that the music room had to have been on the fourth floor. Maybe, if she could get to the first floor, the entrance would be open and she would find herself back on the streets of Los Angeles.

But what if this was one of those weird buildings where the entrance wasn't on the first floor, but on the second or third? Or, magatama forbid, the fourth?

She'd summon Mia. Mia would know what to do.

Maya closed her eyes, reaching out to the world of the dead for her sister. Nothing happened. She couldn't even persuade her soul to leave her body. For now, her channeling powers were on the fritz, something that hadn't happened since she was a teenager.

No help for her. Even Missile was gone. She was alone.

But she couldn't dwell on that! Pearly was coming tomorrow, so she had to get home for her little cousin's sake. She stood, walking into the third floor hallway. If she was going to get out of here, the first thing that she needed to do was get familiar with the territory. Besides, maybe if she looked hard enough, she might find something to scare off those ghosts.

Turning left and beginning down the corridor, it wasn't long before she came across another door glowing with a blue light. Despite the logical part of her brain reminding her about what had happened last time she'd come across a lit door, she was a spirit medium, and her sixth sense was strong. There was something absent in the air, something different, something that wasn't . . . threatening.

She pulled at the door, unsurprised that it was locked too. Of course this couldn't be easy. There was a sign next to the door, but even when she peered at it from millimeters away, there still wasn't enough light for her to read it.

Priority one: Unchanged. Find a light, and soon.

Priority two: Figure out what the sign said.

A familiar shout made her turn her head, and she could see a door open in the light from the stair sign. It slammed shut, the noise reverberating all the way down the hall.

The ghosts hadn't seemed to bother with doors, so she figured it had to be pretty safe. She walked to it. She could hear the muttering even from outside, and it was obvious who was inside now that she could hear his speech. "Gotta be brave. Gotta get back out there. What if my secret admirer is out there? WHAT IF I GOTTA GO SAVE HER?"

She entered the bathroom and knocked on the only closed stall. "Larry?"

He squealed. It was a very girly, high-pitched squeal, one that she'd never actually heard him make. "Why does this keep happening to meeeeeee? WHYYYYYYYYYYYY?"

"Larry, open the door!" She rattled the handle, but it only served to make him scream again as he repeated, "Whyyyyyy? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?"

Maya sized up the door. It wasn't one of those cheap plastic ones, but an honest-to-goodness _door_, complete with a real handle. Talk about a fancy bathroom. Unfortunately, that meant that she didn't have a chance in hell at breaking it down and getting inside. She rattled the door again. "It's Maya! Open the door!"

"Think happy thoughts! Think happy thoughts! Think happy—AUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" he screamed again as Maya threw herself against the door.

"LARRY!" she shouted. He screamed back something unintelligible.

"You know what? Fine! I'll be outside, trying to figure out what's going on!" she shouted, although it only made him squeal again. She slammed the door on her way out and was rewarded with a sob of terror.

She had to feel bad for him. He was alone, and his experience with ghosts had to have been mostly through her. But if he wasn't willing to even come out of the bathroom, she would have to press on without him.

She was still walking down the hall, missing Missile's company, when something cracked. "Who's there?" she asked, backing up against a wall. _Please not the apron guy, please not the apron guy._

Something clicked, and a small cylinder of light dispelled the darkness near her feet.

A flashlight. Thank Ami, it was a flashlight. She could _see_!

It had rolled under some benches (she assumed so, anyways; it had to have fallen from somewhere), so she got on her hands and knees to pick it up, rising again once it was in her grasp.

Light. She was happier about this measly flashlight than she had been when Mia had given her that Steel Samurai DVD set for Christmas years ago.

She waved it around a bit, examining her surroundings. On her left was the set of benches under some _very _dark windows. She moved towards them, pressing her face against the pane. Nothing. She couldn't see anything; not a playground, not even a road. It was like the outside didn't exist at all, and this building merely existed in some sort of nightmare world.

On her right were classrooms. The signs said 2-3 and 2-4 respectively, but both were locked.

But hey, now she could check priority one off the list; she'd found a light.

New priority one: read that sign.

She walked back down the hallway, ignoring Larry's muttering as she walked past the bathroom. The placard next to the glowing door said "Computer Lab". No wonder there was something lit up inside; a computer was probably on. Maya redirected the flashlight beam towards the paper sign on the window. "If this door is locked, see the janitor," she read aloud.

It was doubtful that she'd find the janitor (or find him alive, at least), but if she was looking for a key, it would likely be in his office. There was only one problem with that: where was the janitor's office?

She walked back down the hall for consistency's sake, making sure she hadn't missed anything important in the dark. She could imagine Mia's advice even if her sister wasn't there: _be thorough and don't miss anything_. Unfortunately, other than the bathroom, she only found the locked classrooms 2-1 and 2-2.

As she rounded the corner, the cell phone rang. She picked it up without thinking.

There was a girlish giggle on the other end, followed by, "I've found a new friend. It's time to play."

The line went dead. She glanced back towards the bathroom and froze. The three ghosts were walking away from her, oddly enough, but she didn't realize what they were doing until the tall one opened the door to the bathroom.

Larry was the new friend.

She could hear his strangled scream from halfway down the hall.

Some rational part of her brain stopped her from running after them. She wasn't exactly an amateur at dealing with ghosts, and she knew that without something to banish them, she wasn't going to be any help. For Larry's sake, she needed to find a way out, fast.

Time to pick up the pace.

She didn't find anything else on the third floor, so she took the first staircase she saw down to the second floor. This floor also seemed mostly empty. In Classroom 1-6, she found a magazine lying open on a desk. Hunching over the desk, clutching the flashlight, she began to read.

* * *

_Death of Three Students Rocks Themis Law School_

_The death of three students has jeopardized the future of the esteemed Themis Law Academy. The school, known for producing legal legends such as Klavier Gavin, has been ruled as safe, but that doesn't keep scared parents from removing their children from the program._

_The three students, all in their final year at the Academy, were found unconscious in the computer lab by another student. They were taken to the hospital, but none recovered consciousness and all three eventually died. The hospital reported that the cause of death was unknown, and the toxicology report showed no drugs or poisons on the victims, The school has been reopened, though enrollment has dropped by 25%. Current director of the Prosecutor program, Nathaniel Price, has commented that although what happened was a tragedy, the education of students must continue._

_The names of the victims have not yet been released to the public._

* * *

It couldn't be a coincidence. Three students, three ghosts; these had to be the same.

Unfortunately, while this was interesting, it was hardly useful. She could hardly sit there and wave the newspaper at them, and the article hadn't been specific enough to tell her what had happened. She needed to move on and find something that she could help Larry with.

She stopped in the bathroom, on the off chance that Larry had stumbled upon something useful (but she wasn't holding her breath). Everything seemed normal enough, until she stepped into a stall and the door slammed behind her.

There was someone breathing. Above her.

Hesitantly, she looked up, preparing to fight for her life again. There was someone peeking over the edge of the stall, his dark hair poofing up in all directions. His eyes were small and slanted, yellow irises seeming to pierce into her soul. She backed against the wall as he climbed higher, revealing the rest of his face. "Do you have a . . . hairtie? . . . I lost my hairtie," he breathed out, though the speech was slow and tortured.

And then he disappeared, just like the others.

Maya clutched at her magatama, willing her heart to slow down after her most recent scare. After another moment, the door gave a loud click and swung wide open.

Time to be done with this floor. Like, _now_.

Only one of the staircases was open, so she took that one down to the first floor. At the bottom, a black cat meowed at her and took off to the left.

A cat now? '_Is this a school or a menagerie?_' she wondered, but it was alive, and Missile had at least been a companion, so she followed it.

It led her past a few rooms, but darted into a locker bay. The lockers were thrown wide open, some of them revealing shoes or other belongings. There was one pair of high heels studded with onigiri on the toes that she contemplated putting on, but nixed the idea when she realized they would be hell to run in.

The cat, now out of sight, meowed again. Maya moved past the shoes and found the cat at a closed door.

"Open it," it said, and she jumped.

"You can talk too?!"

He tilted his head. "What other talking cat have you seen?"

"Not a cat, a dog. His name was Missile."

The cat purred. "Missile's here too, huh? Well, the more the merrier. Open the door."

She did. Only to be met with a swirling purple vortex. At first glance, it seemed far away and nothing was between it and her. Absolute nothingness. She pointed the flashlight in all directions, but it never hit any walls. There was literally nothing in the room. "W—What is—?"

"Huh. That wasn't supposed to happen." The cat glanced around. "Maybe I got the wrong room?"

Maya gulped and stared into the abyss. "Am I supposed to go in there?"

"Why would you do that?" the cat asked, sounding alarmed. It brushed past her feet to sit between her and the door. "Does it even look _remotely_ safe?"

"Not exactly."

"I thought so," the cat said. "What does the sign say?"

"Um, coatroom?"

"Yep, wrong room. That's what I get for not being able to read." With a swish of the tail, the door slammed shut. The cat skittered off across the tile and disappeared around the corner.

"Hey, wait!" She ran after it, but it had somehow vanished.

Talk about strange. Giant swirling abysses concealed behind doors, ghosts in a school, and animals that could talk.

There wasn't much more anyone could throw at her that would surprise her.

The library was the last door at the end of this hall before she reached a quite conspicuous dead end, so she looked into it first. It looked normal enough; there were rows of bookshelves and at the end of the room was a librarian's desk. She was about to exit when the newspaper caught her eye.

* * *

_Mysterious Deaths Continue_

_The death of former cartoon genius Sal Manella has added one more to the list of mysterious deaths that have happened in the last month. Manella, 46, was found unconscious at an Internet Café. According to sources near the victim, Manella was doing research for a recent animation project, _The Golden Samurai_, that was slated to the the next big television show for 2029._

_The mysterious deaths have included a local hairdresser, a business man, and three students from Themis Law Academy. All of the victims were found unconscious and none regained consciousness before their deaths. Police have been unable to identify a link between the six victims, and no toxins or poisons have been identified._

_If you have any information, please contact your local police station._

* * *

Maya covered her mouth in shock. There was no way she could have missed this. No way at all. How could Sal Manella—_the_ Sal Manella—have died? And how could she have missed it?

She took a short moment to mourn the death of a legend before pressing on. She had to find the Janitor's Office. Or a way out.

She exited the library, running her hands over every inch of wall she could reach at the dead end, but there seemed to be no hidden switch or a door that lead anywhere, so she backtracked towards the stairs, still reading every sign. She passed the staircase, and the first door on the right said "Janitor's Office."

"Now we're talking," Maya said to herself, stepping inside. The Janitor's Office was dark and sparsely decorated, though it did have a fridge that she took a soda from. There was a safe next to the door with a keypad barring the entrance, and she put in a few random four-digit combinations (including 0000), but none of them opened it.

There were two desks pushed into an L-shape, and on top of the nearest one was a scrap of paper that she had to squint to read the chicken scratch handwriting. "Calendar + day" was all that was written on it. She looked up, looking around for a desk calendar, before realizing that a large one had been pinned to the wall. It was the month of September, and between all of the days, someone had written addition signs. After Saturday, there was an equals sign, and then the total for all of the weeks except for the 22nd through 28th, which was underlined in red ink.

It didn't take a genius to add up the numbers. She found a calculator in the other desk drawer and quickly added up the sum. 175. She penciled that in with an equals sign at the end of the week.

Was this supposed to be the safe combination? She added up the weekly sums, totaling 465, but that still wasn't enough digits. She entered 0465 into the keypad, but it refused to open.

The zero at the front of the combination had her thinking though. She entered in 0175 for the week she'd originally added up, and the light lit up green, blinked a few times, and something beeped, the door finally swinging open.

Genius. That's what she was. A complete genius.

There was a key labeled "Computer Lab" on a keyring, so she took that one and set back on a path towards the staircase. She took the stairs up to the third floor, the computer lab right in front of the stairs. The blue light was still there, which she took to be a good sign. She unlocked the door with the key she'd just obtained and entered.

Most of the computers were off, but there was one in the middle of the room that was brightly lit. Maya walked over to it, sitting in the chair so that she could scroll up and down the text page that was up.

* * *

_Conversation: Group Chat (7)_

_Maya Fey: OMG HI GUYS_

_Phoenix Wright: Think you've done it this time?_

_Miles Edgeworth: Who is this?_

_Maya Fey: Really, Edgeworth? You don't remember me? You're never getting a Christmas present from me ever again. D: Especially not a Limited Edition Steel Samurai figurine._

_..._

* * *

She jerked back from the screen, eyes wide. How could this be on the computer? _How_? It had been a text message between friends, and to her knowledge, had never been uploaded onto a computer. Could that even happen?

She read through their conversation again, her eyes pausing over the anonymous messages. _You will all suffer. I will take my revenge._ Was it possible—

No, of course not. No one could summon ghosts to them, let alone transport people into the spirit world.

At the bottom of the page, there were two phone numbers: 997-684-771 and 997-657-281. She took out her phone, half-wondering whether she should call them.

A telltale wail cut through the silence, and suddenly, the door to the computer lab opened, slamming shut as Larry collapsed against the door. The three ghosts ran past the window, and he sighed in relief, his eyes finally falling on Maya.

"Maya?"

"You finally got out of the bathroom, huh?"

He gave a nervous chuckle that phased into a full laugh after a moment. "You can't imagine how great it is to see you! I thought I was a goner."

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. "I dunno. What are you doing here?"

"I don't know either. I woke up here."

"I did too! Huh, I wonder where we are." Larry scratched the back of his head, seemingly calm now that he had an ally.

"So . . . you don't recognize this place?"

"Not a bit. Then again, I was always bad with places. But I feel like I would have remembered a place with, ah—" He cut off, unwilling to say the word.

"Ghosts?" Maya supplied.

"Yeah. Wonder what they want."

"Have you seen anyone else here?" she asked. Maybe Nick and the others were wandering around somewhere, but the hope was dashed as soon as Larry shook his head.

"Nope. You're the first one I've seen that doesn't look all white and stuff."

There went that idea. She motioned to the computer. "Do you know anything about text messages?"

He sat down at the computer. He was silent as he read through it before finally looking back at her. "This all feels familiar . . ."

She put her hands on her hips. "Obviously! Larry, we sent those messages earlier! Remember? We were at Nick's office—"

"Oh yeah! And then Athena put in the movies and . . . huh, I must have slept through them."

Maya thought back, but it was all fuzzy. "I don't remember watching them either, now that I think about it."

He stared at the numbers on the bottom of the chat. "I could swear those weren't a part of it though."

"No, I didn't think so either. I don't recognize either of the numbers, though, really, who knows phone numbers these days?" The hair on the back of Maya's neck suddenly prickled, and she tugged on Larry's sleeve. "Come on, let's get out of here."

He followed her, though admittedly, he looked confused, still looking towards the computer as she dragged him towards the door. His gasp made her pause.

"Nick?!"

Phoenix Wright was there, hunched in front of the computer. He stood suddenly, and Maya realized he was semi-opaque, color drained from his entire being. In other words, he was as ghostly as the the three students.

Larry gave a shriek, sprinting out into the corridor, but she stayed rooted to the spot. This was Nick, the guy who had always come through for her. He'd tried to cross a burning bridge for her for Ami's sake; if she couldn't trust him, who could she trust? Besides, he didn't seem to be interested in attacking her. He vanished, and she walked towards the computer. Everything was the same except for the last line of the chat.

_"I need to tell Edgeworth."_

"Tell Edgeworth what?" Maya asked aloud, hands on her hips. As if to respond, Phoenix suddenly appeared at the door and phased through it. "Wait!" she shouted, sprinting after him. He walked down the hallway, and she followed him dutifully down to the second floor. The room he entered said "Art Room," and despite the fact that she could have sworn that it was locked earlier, the door opened easily. Phoenix vanished again, and she decided to look around.

The Art Room was a large room featuring a sculpture of some woman with no arms and a ton of ceramic busts. There was a divider behind the sculpture, hiding most of the far half of the room. Maya stepped inside hesitantly, her sixth sense going off complete with flashing lights. Nick's sudden disappearance reminded her of Missile's when the students had attacked. She brandished the flashlight around the room, and something moved behind the divider.

"I thought you were a ghost," he said. He had her blinded with his flashlight, but he dropped it to the ground, adjusting his glasses. "Maya Fey?"

"Edgeworth?!" Her jaw dropped. "W—What are you doing here?!"

"I might ask you the same thing." He motioned to the table. "Here, sit. I'm sure we can sort all of this out."

She seated herself across from him, their flashlights sending a beam of light against the armless statue. "Have you seen Larry?"

He gave a snort, though something about it didn't seem like Edgeworth for some reason. Maya could have sworn she'd seen him do the same thing a million times, but something about the movement didn't seem authentic. "I take it you've seen him too."

"Just a minute ago. Do you know what's going on?"

Edgeworth shook his head. "According to Wright, we're stuck in some . . . place. I believe he called it—" he paused to shift through a stack of notebook papers, though again, something didn't seem quite right with the way he did it, "—the Mnemonic Abyss. And we can move through it by calling numbers on our cell phones. However, I'm very sure that this is all actually a dream and that I'll wake up as soon as possible." He crossed his arms over his chest.

Maya slammed her hands against the desk. "B—but Edgeworth! No! No, this isn't all a dream! It can't be a dream. There are ghosts here and I can't channel my sister, and," without warning, she launched into the story of what had happened to her since she had woken up in the music room.

He waited a moment after she was done and then shook his head. "No. I'm sorry, Miss Fey, but that is a ridiculous story. There is no such thing as ghosts, and, if indeed, this is not a dream, then it must be a very elaborate prank."

She wanted to scream in frustration. Why was everyone she met _so_ unhelpful? "Let's at least exchange numbers," she said, trying to compose her argument. She looked into the phone's information for the number she wrote down on a piece of paper and he slid her a piece with his. She wanted to argue more, and had just opened her mouth to do so when he gasped.

"Wright!"

She was barely able to turn around in time to see Nick running out of the room, Edgeworth trailing him, a furious look on his face, the door left wide open. Maya ran after them, but the door suddenly slammed shut as she approached.

She stumbled backwards, whirling around, only to come face-to-face with a woman she had never thought she would see again. "Dahlia?"

"Maya Fey." The woman gave a giggle, tilting her head and smiling angelically. White butterflies fluttered around her, but Maya wasn't fooled by the innocent demeanor. Dahlia Hawthorne was the worst of the worst; she had been responsible for Diego Armando's poisoning, her mother's murder, and Iris's guilt for so many years. "It's nice to see you again."

"What do you want?" Maya asked, her hand closing around her magatama reflexively.

Dahlia shook her head, flipping her hair over one pale shoulder. "It's not about what I want at all. It's about what you've done."

"Huh?" That caught her off guard. "What have _I_ done?"

"You killed her."

The words seemed to hang heavily in the air between them. Maya flinched, and then the anger started. How dare Dahlia accuse her of doing anything! She shook her head adamantly. "N—no! I didn't kill her. _You_ did."

The siren cocked a slender brow. "I haven't killed anyone."

"My mother! You killed my mother!" Maya said, taking a step forward.

"Oh, her?" Dahlia asked, sounding uninterested. She gave a sigh, twirling her parasol absentmindedly. "Not quite. Sorry, but you're the only murderer here." She took a few steps forward, and Maya went cold, backing up against the closed door. Dahlia's hands closed around her elbows and images flashed past Maya's vision again.

A snowy mountain.

A dagger.

_Blood._

Dahlia stepped back, her charming mask back in place. "See you again soon, Maya." With another giggle, she vanished.

Maya dropped to her knees, her head spinning. What had Dahlia meant? What was going on? Those images of Hazakura Temple and the training area that she kept seeing . . . what were they? She caught her breath and then turned around and opened the door. A flash blinded her momentarily, and as her eyes readjusted, she realized that the cardboard box girl was standing in front of her. "Wait right there! I'll go get my friends, and we'll have you on the front page in no time!"

"Oh nononononononononono! You don't have to do that! No, don't do that!" Maya shouted, lunging out the door, but the girl vanished, leaving her clutching at thin air.

_Meow._

Maya turned, seeing the black cat halfway down the hall again. She thought about following it until it brushed up against her leg, purring, and then scampered down the staircase. How could something so adorable be bad? She followed it down to the first floor.

It walked past the Janitor's Office to the hallway she'd left unexplored earlier. She passed the principal's office before the cat stopped in front of the nurse's office, mewling and scratching at the door. A terrified sob sounded from within, and Maya could guess who was inside. "Thanks, little guy," she said, petting his ears. He reveled in the attention before running off again. She opened the door.

The nurse's office was empty. Like, almost completely empty. Besides a small desk pushed up against the wall and two privacy dividers for hospital beds, the only things were little health reminders on signs pasted on the wall. _"Have safe sex!" _one said, and she decided that she could skip reading the rest of them. Larry was sprawled across the nearest hospital bed, his hands over his face. He seemed to be murmuring something to himself, and as she got closer, she could hear, "I just want to go home. I just want to go home."

"Larry?"

He stilled, sitting up. "Oh. Hey, Maya."

She perched on the side of the bed. "How are you holding up?" she asked, trying to impart some cheerfulness into her voice. If she could fake it for Pearly, she could fake it for Larry, right? It definitely sounded like he needed it.

He gave a high-pitched laugh. "Oh, fine. Just fine. You know, with the constant ghosts and all."

"I saw Edgeworth!"

"Like, as a ghost?"

She shook her head. "No! He's alive, like us."

This seemed to cheer him up immensely. "And if I know good ol' Edgey, he's got a plan, am I right?"

"Well, um," Maya tried to figure out a way to tell him that Edgeworth's plan consisted of waking up in his own bed and laughing about it over breakfast without seeming too pessimistic about it. "I think he's just gathering information at this point. Like, that, um . . . oh! We can use our cell phones to transport places!" Edgeworth had mentioned it in passing, but it had to mean something, coming from Edgeworth.

Larry blinked a few times. "Ex-squeeze me?"

"Like, if you call a phone number, I guess it'll send you to the location that the other phone is in." Theoretically, at least.

Larry leaped out of the bed, a grin wide on his face. "So, I just dial a phone number, right?"

"Right."

A cell phone was in his hand instantly, and he was dialing numbers before she could even process what was happening. "W—wait, Larry!" she tried to say, but he'd hit the send button and held the phone to his ear as she tried to stop him. The cell phone clattered to the floor, and she could hear him scream, but she blinked and he was gone. Completely vanished.

Edgeworth had been right.

She glanced down at her own cell phone. There were a lot of people she could call, but now that she was thinking it through, she couldn't seem to remember a single number. Besides, it wasn't like she knew where she'd be transported to even if she had called. What if whoever she called had been in danger at the time, and she found herself in a worse situation? Or, what if they were like Nick? Could she even call his number?

Larry's cell phone was on the floor, and she picked it up and shoved it in her pocket. It might come in handy, especially if she finally transported somewhere that didn't have a cell phone. Theoretically, she'd always be able to get out.

She had just exited the nurse's office when her cell phone rang. It could very well be the ghost . . . or it could be Edgeworth, now that he had her number. She picked up. "Hello?"

"Maya."

"Edgeworth!"

She could hear him clear his throat on the other end of the line. "Are you holding up okay?" he asked awkwardly.

"Yeah. And I just saw Larry. He, um, transported somewhere else. I don't know where. But he left his cell phone."

"It seems as though we leave our cell phone every time we teleport. You might want to consider transporting soon too; it, erm, seems to be rather dangerous around here."

He could say that again. "I'll leave soon. What about you?"

"There's a few more things that I want to check on first. After you teleport, I won't be able to contact you. Will you be alright?"

_More alright than you seem to be,_ she thought ruefully, but nodded instead. "I'll be fine."

"Stay safe, Maya. Hopefully we wake up soon."

"Hopefully," she seconded, and then hung up. She'd no sooner put the cell phone back in the pocket of her robe when the notification noise went off. She pulled it out to see a picture of the broken door on the fourth floor in a text message. The sender was anonymous, but the message was clear. Something was in there, and she wanted to know what it was. Besides, the last time she'd received a text message like this, it had guided her towards the stairs during the ghost attack. She had a guardian angel operating somewhere. Maybe it was Mia, she tried, hoping to comfort herself. The thought did make her feel better.

Yeah, that was what she'd go with. Mia was sending her the text messages. Not some weird, creepy ghost thing waiting to lure her into danger.

She headed back towards the stairwell, making a quick detour when she heard a phone ringing in the Janitor's Office. Wait, how could there be a rotary phone ringing when the electricity was out?

She stepped inside the room, still not quite surprised when there was no one in there. She picked up the phone, holding it to her ear.

_"Mother?"_ The voice was Pearl's. Maya had heard her call Morgan a million times, and every time, it was the same. _"When are you coming back? I just, I—I'm lonely. Ever since, well . . . you know . . ." _There was a quiet sob, and Maya pressed the phone more snugly against her ear, heartbroken. _"I just want to see you. I'll be a good girl, and I'll train every day. Come visit me soon, please. I love you._" The call ended, and Maya set the phone down, tearing up. Poor Pearly. Though, what had she been talking about? Ever since what?

What had made Pearly so lonely?

She shook it off. There wasn't much she could do until she got home, and then she'd spoil her favorite little cousin until Pearly didn't know what had hit her. Until then, Mia was leading her around. She checked the text message again before setting back on the path to the fourth floor.

The door was still locked when she got to it, and she rattled it to see if she could break it down. Nope, it stayed firm. She got on her hands and knees, peering through the crack in the door and got an idea.

She checked the number on Larry's cell phone and dialed it into her own before throwing it inside of the room through the crack. She took a deep breath and then pressed the send button.

Everything faded around her, going black, and she instinctively shut her eyes. When she opened them again, she was inside of the classroom, Larry's phone next to her feet.

It had worked.

There was a glowing white light in the middle of the room, and Maya walked over to it, surprised when it didn't vanish. She could hear muted voices mumbling, but when she got closer, the voices got quieter.

The cell phone, still on the floor, vibrated. Maya walked back to it, surprised when there was a picture of the Record symbol on the screen. She brought the phone back over to where the voices were the strongest and pressed the record button. After a few seconds, it automatically began to play back.

_"Did you hear about the guy at the Internet Cafe?"_

_"Yeah. I bet he died from playing too many video games."_

_"Probably. Though it says he was a cartoon person, so maybe it was watching too many cartoons online."_

_"Whatever. Creepy stuff. Besides, a grown man alone in a private internet room? There's not much of a question about what's going on there."_

The recording cut off, and Maya wrinkled her nose. Gossip. Hardly any useful information. She put the phone back into her pocket and investigated the room further. There had been something radiating blue light, but she couldn't see anything lit here. She turned on the flashlight.

There was nothing special about this classroom. Thirty desks, all neatly in their rows. Dark windows that she couldn't see out of. There was a magazine perched on one desk, and she shone the light on it. It was an old edition of _Oh! Cult!_ magazine advertising Hazakura Temple. In fact, it looked really familiar, though Maya had been reading the magazine for the past ten years, so that wasn't surprising. There was a picture of Sister Bikini and someone else, but their face was covered up by a giant phone number written in red.

_997-494-582_

Maya didn't recognize the number, but there didn't seem to be much else in here and Edgeworth had recommended she go somewhere else. She pulled out her phone when she heard the voice behind her.

"WHERE ARE YOU GOING, MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN?"

Oh no, not him again. Please, not him.

The boy in the painter's smock was back, flanked by the woman hiding in the cardboard box and the tall boy she'd seen earlier. Except, she was pretty sure the taller boy hadn't had something on his hands before. And whatever it was, smeared all over the tall object he was carrying, it looked a lot like blood.

Box girl hopped up, and another flash emitted from her hands. This time, Maya realized it was a camera. "You haven't stayed to see your scoop published!"

"That's okay," Maya mumbled, taking a few steps back. "I, uh, I don't need to-"

"I haven't shown you my genius yet," the taller boy said, getting closer.

They were closing in on her. And then she blinked, and the painter's smock boy tackled her.

She took out four desks as she fell, trying desperately to shake him off. The punch she landed hit him in the middle of the chest, but it was hard enough to make him jerk back so that she could find her footing again. Unfortunately, she hadn't realized the cardboard box inching up behind her until it rammed her in the back of the knees, making her fall backwards. The cell phone fell from her pocket, bouncing across the tile floor.

The phone. She needed to get out of here _fast_, and calling the other cell phone wasn't going to help, seeing as these ghosts could go through walls. She kicked the box, grimacing a bit when the girl inside yelped, and lunged for the phone.

"Looking for this?" The tall boy had scooped it up, coming closer until he dropped it right in front of her. She reached for it, and that was when the apron guy decided to tackle her again. The box ghost scooped the phone from the floor, just inches from her fingers before tossing the box onto Maya's head. Now blinded (by a ghost box; she wasn't sure how that actually worked), she put her head down against the floor to push up with her hands.

Something pierced through the top of the box.

A split second later, something else shattered on top of the cardboard.

Maya threw the box off, on her feet and grasping for the cell phone that the now-revealed box girl had set on a nearby desk. As quickly as she could, she dialed the first number she could think of.

_997-494-582_

She hit send, and to her relief, everything started going black. Her gaze fell upon the box, and she realized that an arrow was stuck through it and bits of pottery were scattered around it. The box girl looked at her box forlornly. "Why is it always my box?" she asked.

Everything faded out before Maya had a chance to hear the answer.

* * *

**A/N ::**

**Melody Canta ::**

**FINALLY! This chapter is done! If you've ever read any of my other stuff, you know that my chapters are roughly half of this length. That would be because these are a PAIN to get done. Unfortunately, I didn't have much of a choice; it was either do this all in one chapter or figure out where to split it and risk losing dramatic tension. So, I finally got it all out. I know; you guys are disappointed. You want to see a Shikola chapter, right? I have one more to do before she finally gets to do her first one (which is already typed out and just needs editing now, so it shouldn't take too long), so don't fret! (And next time she gets to write the first HALF OF THE FANFICTION. D: )**

**Anyways, to the actual chapter! I forgot to mention in the first chapter a slight _Ghost Trick_ crossover (Missile, anyone?), so that's in there. It's not much; there are Save Points in the game that we thought it might be fun to put him in. And he's just so adorable. Lots of Ace Attorney crossovers in this one (and only one that's somewhat ambiguous, I believe), and the slightest bit of PLOT! Finally, right? And what's Larry doing here now? Well, that's the chronological problem we talked about in the last chapter. If you're looking for Larry's timeline, it goes from The Awakening to The Possession (and believe me, it'll be much clearer soon). **

**Well, onward! I'll see you guys in the next chapter, and then finally, Shikola gets her turn to wow you guys.**

**Shikola Krasno ::**

**YO! No hating on Melody for length or time between published chapters, O-K-A-Y? As for length, this whole thing's going to be pretty darn long so you'll just have to trust us when we say that it'll be worth it. As for the published part, we didn't think too hard before hand about just how much we had to write. So while we've both been pretty enthusiastic about this, we do have lives outside of this particular story. As for my own chapters, those will likely come out with much less down time than Melody's but only because I've been working on them from the beginning and, since they're not due until much later, they just sort of sit around until their time comes. Melody's got the harder job. So like she said: if we try this sort of thing again she'll be making me write the first half. But for now you'll just have to continue to enjoy Canta's stuff. I'm still free until chapter four!**

**As for the chapter, I hope everyone got all the cameo ghosts. If you're not certain of the students (and you HAVE played Dual Destinies) they'll be formally named in one of my chapters MUCH later. The only one that might not be obvious is the creepy bathroom ghost. That's supposed to be Simon Blackquill (also Dual Destinies). If you know the character you can imagine how creepy he would look with his hair down. Why he had to be haunting a bathroom stall is a question that we don't really have an answer to. There's just a super creepy bathroom ghost with long black hair and horrible eyes, so he seemed to fit pretty well. The bathroom part was unfortunate (in the game it's in a girl's bathroom too, if I remember right). Hope you enjoy the weird little places your favorite characters show up!**


	4. The Wandering

**Chapter Three :: The Wandering**

When the darkness began to fade to the corners of her vision and it was obvious that she was no longer in that crazy school, Maya gave a deep sigh of relief, her whole body going lax until she was seated on the floor. Edgeworth had been right; the school had been dangerous, though he hadn't said the three reasons.

Of course, she hadn't wanted to meet all three at once.

She turned her flashlight back on to look for the light switch, and was disappointed to find that the power also seemed to be out wherever she was now. She started looking around. She was in a tiny, cramped room with a computer desk on one side and a locked door on the other. Posters for various things littered the walls, but she found exactly what she was looking for as soon as she waved her light along the floor. A cell phone sat in the corner. Edgeworth had again been right; this wasn't the same phone she had started with. This one had a red case on it, and a fairly scandalous picture of the Pink Princess as its background. "Ew?" she said, flipping the phone closed.

There was the sound of someone typing, and she wondered if it could be Phoenix trying to communicate (though his last message had hardly been helpful; "_I need to tell Edgeworth"_? What, he didn't want to share it with her too?. She looked up to see the very pale, very large image of Sal Manella hacking away at the computer. Saliva was dripping down one side of his mouth as he muttered, "D3adline. H4ve 2 m33t the d3adline." She took a step closer, and he faded away.

She might consider him a genius, but every time she saw him, she was reminded just how creepy he actually was.

The computer chair he'd been sitting in had a slip of paper in it, and she picked it up.

* * *

_29_

* * *

Was all it said. 29? 29 what? Horses? Sheep? Cow udders? Samurai swords? Talk about unhelpful. It certainly wasn't long enough to be a phone number, though it could be a part of one, she realized. Maybe there were multiple slips of paper that she had to put together to spell out a phone number.

The computer was off, and any attempts she made to turn it on were unfruitful, so she returned to examining the room fairly quickly. There was a poster on the wall for some new video game that she thought she could see a face in if she squinted. It was a familiar looking face, with sort of a lion's mane thing going on. She puzzled over it, staring at the poster until she realized that it was getting more defined. It was getting closer, only inches away from her nose. She squeaked, backing up against the wall, but "please don't cry" was the only thing he said before vanishing.

Talk about a nice ghost.

Under the poster was a box with a two-digit combination lock. This had to be what the memo had been talking about, she realized. She turned one of the dials, surprised when the combination changed from _00_ to _12_. She turned the dial on the other side, and the combination changed to _31_.

She could get the hang of this. She twisted the knobs randomly, trying to keep the two in the tens column and fiddling until the combination finally read _29_. There was a click, and the top of the box bounced as the lock released.

Maya opened it and paused. "Doll parts?" she asked, taking out part of a torso, two arms, and a kneecap from the box. There was a slip of paper sitting between the other half of the torso and a calf, and she picked it up.

* * *

_Bruto Cadaverini - 997-818-662_

* * *

Another phone number! Finally! There didn't seem to be much else she could do in this little computer spot, so she pulled out the phone and dialed.

_997-818-662_

Everything faded, and it wasn't until the air cooled and the noises stilled that she opened her eyes again. The new room was pitch black, and again, she had to turn on her flashlight before she could see anything. Of course, once she had, she wished she hadn't.

Dolls. There were dolls. _Everywhere_. They were all turned towards her, staring at her with empty eyes.

On both sides of the room, there were shelves, dolls made of long strands of something on every square inch. She recognized a few of them—Penny Nichols was on the top row on her right—but most of them she didn't know. She picked up the nearest one and put it back almost immediately, grossed out. They were made of noodles. Unfortunately, the noodles seemed to be crusted over with a thick layer of . . . well, _something. _She wiped her hands on the long tablecloth on the shelf, She certainly wasn't going to touch those again.

She turned towards the door. Three beams of red cut through the darkness, coming from the ground, and she shined her flashlight on the source.

It was a man. He had tanned skin and white hair, though some of it was hidden by the visor with the three glowing red bars across it. He wore a dark green shirt and white, pinstripe vest, and there was something about the entire ensemble that seemed so _familiar_. She looked at him for a long minute, trying to think of where she'd seen him before, but after a while, she had to admit that she had no clue.

"Hello?" she asked, walking closer to him when he didn't respond. He had color, unlike the ghosts, and when she reached down to pull at his shirt, it was solid. He didn't even stir, however. "Hello!" She grasped his vest and shook, trying to wake him up. Still nothing. She shook harder and harder until his head connected with the wood floor, and she set him back down to avoid causing further brain damage.

There was a cell phone by the table next to him, and she reached for it, only to have it snatched away by a hand that darted out from under the tablecloth. "For science!" something said, and Maya pounced towards the phone, but it was already gone. She pulled the tablecloth aside. There was no one under the table. Just great. A disembodied hand had stolen the cell phone she needed and disappeared.

Her luck was not helping her out today.

She turned back to the doors. They were the old-fashioned Japanese sliding style, which matched the tatami mat carpeting the owner seemed to have gone for. She tugged on the doors, but they didn't move. There were more dolls—though these ones were actual dolls, not noodles—and a strange black blob in front of the door.

Was this another puzzle for her to solve? Bring it on! She picked up the doll in front with the red kimono on, but it disappeared from her hands. The black blob grew bigger. The doll went back to its original place.

Was that wrong or right? She couldn't tell. But there had to be a clue somewhere around here. She looked around, but the only thing she found was a photograph of the dolls in a row. Still, it was better than nothing. She turned back to the door only to be stopped by a groan coming from behind her.

The man on the floor sat up, pressing a hand to the back of his head. "What—?" he started to say, only to stop and look around. "Dolls . . ."

Maya had crouched down, hoping something would trigger her memory now that he was awake. So far, no good. Still, it would be best to make friends with this guy. If he was dangerous, she was screwed; there was nowhere she could run with the doors locked and she had no cell phone to teleport away with. "Um, hello?"

He didn't even look at her. "So many dolls . . ." he grunted. "Why . . . why dolls?"

"Hello?" she asked a little louder. This time he looked at her, or maybe he was looking through her. She didn't know.

He picked a noodle doll up from the nearby shelf, apparently unaffected by its slimy texture. "This one . . . it looks like her."

"Looks like who?" she asked. She shifted to try to get a better look, but a cell phone rang from the other side of the doors.

Right. Cell phone. She needed one of those to get home. Besides, the idea that Mia was on the other end of it was a nice one. "I'll get that door open. Just take it easy for a bit," she told the man, picking up the picture of the dolls lined up and dragging it over to the door.

There were two ways this could go. She started in the opposite order first, from the end of the line to the front.

Blue kimono.

The dark blob grew bigger, and the doll returned to its place. Then again, she didn't really know what was supposed to happen, so . . . maybe that was right?

She picked up the one with the red and yellow kimono.

The darkness grew.

By the time she had picked up the third one—the one with white sleeves—her heart was starting to pound and the dark blob seemed to eclipse more than half of the door.

This seemed wrong. Time to try the other way. She picked up the one in the front of the line in the picture, the one with the black bow. The darkness faded into the same size it had been when she had first come into the room, and the doll disappeared.

Obviously she was doing something right now. She picked up the one with the striped kimono, then the dog doll (or she thought it was a dog, at least; it could have been just a really ugly fox), the red flower kimono, the white sleeved kimono, and finished with the red and yellow kimono and the blue kimono.

The darkness faded completely. She tried the door, hesitantly opening it when it became obvious she could. She glanced back towards the man on the floor and said, "I'll be right back! Stay here." He could handle himself for a few seconds, right? Just while she grabbed the cell phone. She would be _right__ back._

She closed the door, looking at the room she was in. It looked like someone's attic. There were boxes everywhere and no window. She swept her flashlight upon everything that wasn't pressed up against the walls, wary of a ghost hiding behind something (not that they really needed to hide, but still. Better safe than sorry). When she didn't see anything, she hurried through the room and ran down the stairs.

She'd entered the hallway and had taken a few steps before something dropped from the ceiling in front of her. It rolled towards her, and she realized as it approached that it was another one of the noodle dolls, this time of Sister Bikini. There was a high-pitched child's giggle coming from down the hall, and then it approached closer and closer, more voices joining in until it sounded like an army of children giggling inside of the walls next to her.

And then it suddenly stopped.

She wasn't sure what was more disconcerting—the giggling or that it had ceased so suddenly. She looked around, hoping against hope that the cell phone was somewhere in the hallway, but she didn't see it. It had already stopped ringing, so finding where exactly it was in this house was going to be harder than before.

There was a door on her right that she entered, relieved when she saw the cell phone on the floor. The room looked like a bedroom, complete with a bed, nightstand (and even a rotary phone on it), and a few sets of drawers. She leaned down to pick up the phone.

A hand darted out from under the bed and wrapped around her wrist. Her head snapped around to look at her assailant, and she screamed.

Larry stared up at her, much paler and far more ghostlike than the last time she'd seen him. "MAYAAAAAAAAAAAA! HELP MEEEEEEEEE!"

She pulled back instinctively only to find that the force had pulled him out from under the bed, towering over her. His fingers dug into her shoulders.

"PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE! YOU HAVE TO HELP MEEEEE!"

She managed to wriggle out from under him, grabbing the cell phone as she ran out the door. She'd made it to the corner when something grabbed her leg, pulling her downwards. Larry held the limb to his chest for dear life. "PLEASE, MAYA, PLEASE!" he begged.

She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood as she shook him off. There was nothing she could do for him now, she reminded herself, managing to free her leg.

She sprinted toward the attic, but the door was locked. Larry trapped her against it, his hands gripping her neck again. She tried to resist, but his grip was strong and she couldn't break the hold. Gurgling noises came from her mouth as she tried to restore oxygen to her lungs. The world started losing definition as her vision began to fail . . .

He let go.

She slid to the ground, vaguely aware of the sound of a rotary phone ringing. Larry had his hands pressed over his ears, his scream now drowning out the ring. He doubled over, whimpering, "no no no no no no no." After a minute of this, he disappeared.

Maya sighed in relief. Her head was starting to clear, and she glanced at the cell phone. No text messages, no missed calls. So much for that.

The rotary phone in the bedroom was still ringing. She got to her feet, entered the bedroom, and answered it.

Again, it was Pearl's voice. _"You promised! You promised you wouldn't try to hurt her again! How could you do this? I—I hate you, Mother!"_ There was so much pain in her voice that the last sentence seemed extra venomous, especially from Pearly. Pearl Fey, who didn't possess a hateful bone in her body. Something seemed odd.

The line went dead and Maya put the phone back on the receiver. What had Morgan done to spark Pearl's ire like that? And who had she hurt now? Iris? She couldn't think of anything that her aunt had done to her recently, unless this strange ghost world was her doing, but Maya doubted it was. While Morgan had the power to channel ghosts like most Feys, her powers were weak compared to Maya's or Pearl's. There was no way she could have pulled off something of this magnitude.

In any case, she couldn't stick around much longer. She'd told the man that she'd be right back. He was probably starting to wonder if she'd abandoned him.

The door to the attic was unlocked. "Of course," she muttered bitterly. "Now that I'm not running for my life." She turned, only to realize there was a ghost in the room. He stared at her, but didn't move. She stared back at him. "My noodles . . . My noodles are . . ." His voice trailed off, leaving her to wait with bated breath until he vanished.

His noodles were what? Dolls? Covered with some slimy substance she couldn't identify? He hadn't attacked her, so she quickly went through the door to the doll room before he changed his mind.

The man was gone. He wasn't on the floor anymore, and she knew she hadn't imagined him. He'd been real when she had slammed his head back against the floor. But somehow, he was gone. There hadn't been a cell phone in here, unless you counted the one that had been abducted by the disembodied science hand, so he couldn't have teleported. The house had only one hallway. If he'd left the room, she would have seen him.

Where had he gone?

She shone the flashlight over where he'd been sitting. There was a piece of paper, much like the ones she and Edgeworth had exchanged earlier. She picked it up.

* * *

_Diego Armando — 997-618-252_

_Kuromiya Hospital Room #204_

* * *

The only thing she could think of was that he had somehow managed to find a phone and call this number. There didn't seem to be much more she could do here, and she was a bit worried, since he had barely been coherent when she had seen the man last. She flipped open the phone and dialed.

_997-618-252_

She hit send, closing her eyes and trusting that the world around her was about to fade.

* * *

When she opened her eyes again, there was a white light floating in front of her and something vibrating to her left. She clicked on her flashlight in order to see that the vibrating thing was a cell phone. This had happened before, she remembered, when she was in the school. There had been a white light, and she had recorded it to hear the voices. She picked up the phone, walking over to the light and hearing the familiar murmuring. She hit the record button and waited.

It automatically played back, like normal.

_"We need to get her clothing out of the way."_

_"What happened?"_

_"They found her up in the mountains with a stab wound through her abdomen. She's hypothermic too."_

_"BP is dropping!"_

_"Get her to the OR."_

_"Yes, doctor!"_

The recording cut off, leaving Maya very confused. She waved the light around, trying to figure out where she was. She was in an office of sorts, though the pristine tile floor and medical gauze in the corner made her think of a hospital. But that was what that memo had said, right? Kuromiya Hospital Room #204. This didn't seem much like a hospital room though. For one, there was no hospital bed. And where was the weird machine that beeped in time with a person's heart rate?

There was a file sitting on the desk, and she picked it up out of curiosity.

It seemed to be a medical chart, but whose chart was a mystery. The name was unreadable. The rest of the chart, however, had different, fairly legible scribble for a doctor.

* * *

_Injuries: _

_Stomach punctured by sharp force trauma._

_Ribs 6 and 7 broken._

_Left femur shattered._

_Bruising along the left side of the body consistent with blunt force trauma._

_Patient was admitted hypothermic, but body temperature regulated within forty-five minutes._

* * *

Why did this feel so familiar? She closed her eyes, trying to summon up the memory . . .

And then it came.

The images flashed quickly. The dagger that sliced through her abdomen, her eyes as she stared at a Pearl Fey who was entirely too tall and too old to be the Pearly she knew. A Pearl Fey with braids in her hair, a smile smoothed over delicate features. Rubies seemed to be splattered on her robes, though they couldn't be rubies with the way they seemed to turn to liquid at her sleeves, coating graceful fingers in red. The same liquid extended from her torso, a crimson flower blooming in the snow, its dark tendrils still seeping out around the knife.

She gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. That was Hazakura Temple! The training grounds, where her mother had died! But instead of her mother, it had been Maya on the ground and Pearl wielding the knife.

That wasn't how it had happened. Or was it? She racked her brain, trying to remember what had happened. Misty had summoned Dahlia instead, and . . . then what? She tried to recall that night in detail, but it was fuzzy, despite the fact that she'd had nightmares about it for years afterwards.

Which story was real?

Who held the knife?

And had she actually died that night?

She dropped the file back on the desk and exited the room, shaken. She'd known what had happened that night, until this very moment, and she didn't have enough evidence to justify either one of the things she remembered. Her hand pressed against her stomach, but there was no hole where the dagger had been, nothing to prove that she had been physically affected either way.

The door led out to the hallway, fluorescent lights built into the ceiling and the same sterile tile as the room she'd just come out of. Each room had a small placard attached to the wall. That one said "Consultation Room".

She wandered down the hallway until it came to a T, not seeing anything of interest. There was a vending machine on her immediate left. Vending machines always made her think of Mia, of how she'd scold Maya for checking the change return for money people had left behind. Maya had never seen the problem; after all, who came back for fifty-one cents? But then again, that had been classic Mia. Fighter for the fair, protector of the small.

She pressed the change return wistfully, wishing her sister was there. The disembodied hand shot out of the slot and grabbed her wrist. "FOR SCIENCE!" it shouted, and Maya screamed. She wrestled with the hand, yanking back and forth until the hand released her and returned to the machine.

A lump rose in her throat, and she gave a sob, burying her face in her hands. She just wanted to go home. Away from these ghosts and these people who weren't helpful to her at all. Where was Edgeworth now? And Larry was . . . Larry was . . .

She gave a shuddering breath, steering her thoughts away from that. Larry was fine. He had to be fine. Edgeworth would help him, even if Maya had failed at it.

Again.

She could feel eyes on her suddenly, and her head snapped up. This was no time to feel sorry for herself! Squaring her shoulders, she looked around for the culprit. She looked back towards the hallway and was blinded momentarily by a flash of white light, two eyes seeming to stare at her in the moment of sensory deprivation. She blinked, and in front of her was a ghost. She was dressed in nurse's scrubs, holding a clipboard. Her hair swept down from her cap, hiding one of her eyes. The desolate look on her face was one Maya recognized immediately.

Since when was Adrian Andrews a nurse?

Adrian stared at her with sad eyes before turning and taking a few steps back down the hallway. She glanced over her shoulder back at Maya and paused.

Did she want to be followed?

Maya walked towards her slowly and Adrian led her past the Consultation Room to a staircase before proceeding up it. They went up only one flight of stairs before Adrian walked down the hall again. This floor seemed to be identical to the one below it, with its spotless tile and dead fluorescent lights. They had gone past only a few rooms when Adrian suddenly vanished.

She was on her own again.

_Yip yip yip yip yip. Yip yip._

Or maybe not. The barking was faint, but she could hear it clearly. She walked farther down the hall, hearing it come most strongly from Room 202. She entered to find Missile barking at what looked like the bottom half of a ghost penguin pacing behind a curtain.

"Missile?"

The dog gasped (or something close to it; it might have been a snort) before bounding over to her happily. "Miss Burgers! HELLO!" He pawed at her knees and she knelt down to smother him with affection, petting every inch of him she could reach. He slobbered all over her in his race to lick her face thoroughly, and by the time they stopped rolling around, she felt like she needed a shower to clean off the dog saliva that was on her skin and robes.

"What are you doing here?"

"I found a thing!" he said, turning again to the curtain and starting to bark at it again. The ghost penguin continued to shuffle around at the same speed.

Could she be attacked by a ghost penguin? What would that even look like? Deciding she didn't really want to know, she picked Missile up, holding tight when he squirmed and whined, and exited the room. "Where should we go?" she asked the dog.

He squirmed in her arms. "Back to the thing," he whined, and she sighed.

"Not happening." She pulled out the slip of paper with the hospital's phone number again. _Diego Armando. Kuromiya Hospital Room #204._ She was only a few rooms away.

Room 204 looked just like Room 202 with the exception of the penguin. A curtain was drawn around one of the beds, but the other one was exposed. The cell phone vibrated as she neared the open bed, and she recorded the muttering she could hear.

_"I—Is he any better?"_ The voice was so familiar, but Maya couldn't quite place it.

_"Not that I can tell." _This one Maya knew immediately. She'd spoken with her sister enough to recognize her voice over the phone. Just the five words made her ache for Mia.

_"I'm sorry."_

_"For what?" _Mia sounded confused.

_"I . . . I can't say." _There was a few moments of awkward silence before the mystery voice spoke again, soft and hesitant. _"He's lucky to have someone like you around."_

_"I want to be here when he wakes up." _Mia's voice cracked. _"I just want him to be okay, you know?"_

_"Of course. Is there anything I can do?"_

_"Probably not. But thank you."_

_"I'll just sit here with you then. You look like you could use the company."_

She could hear Mia chuckle. _"Thanks, Iris."_

Iris. Dahlia's sister. She hadn't known that Mia had known her cousin. But why had Mia been in the hospital, right in this room?

Who was Diego Armando, and why was she so determined to be there when he woke up?

In the bed, there was a piece of paper much like the one the man had left behind. She picked it up, her fingers trembling.

* * *

_Mia Fey — 997-082-196_

* * *

She hadn't really needed the number, to tell the truth; she still had Mia's cell phone number memorized, even though the number had now likely been assigned to someone else. But what was Mia's cell phone number doing here in a hospital bed? She opened her cell phone when Missile suddenly started barking.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"I hear something," he growled. She set him down, and he immediately darted towards the door. She opened it for him. He bounded up the stairs.

"Wait!" she shouted, sprinting after him. They went up to the third floor before they both suddenly stopped.

There were faces. In the walls. "Missile?" she said, her voice quavering. She stepped back and he started barking at the faces, though he didn't get any closer.

"HELLO!" he shouted between barks.

The faces shifted to look towards them.

"Time to go!" Maya said, her heart rate racing. She pulled out her cell phone, punching in Mia's number.

_997-082-196_

Before everything went black, she grabbed Missile, hoping she could take him with her. And then she shut her eyes tightly, not wanting to see the faces move and approach them.

When she opened her eyes again, she was on the floor, her hand still clutching her flashlight. Missile was gone though, and she really hoped he wasn't back at the hospital still. She turned the flashlight on, getting up and looking around. It looked like someone's living room. There was a cell phone on the coffee table that she picked up, but beyond that, it was boring. The couch was comfortable though, and she sat down on it, trying to decide what to do.

What was the point of continuing to run around aimlessly? The farther she went, the more aggressive the ghosts seemed to be getting, and the more confused she got. On the other hand, if she did nothing, she was likely to never get out of here. She got back up and froze.

There were footsteps. Creaking above her, wooden boards groaning as weight was placed on them.

Edgeworth? Missile? Or someone else?

She exited the room and looked around. She was looking down a long hallway. She turned right, finding a kitchen immediately. "I'm liking the purple fridge," she said to herself, opening it. There was a sandwich in there, and she was hungry, so she took it, figuring that if she could find whose home this was, she'd apologize later. She continued to munch on the sandwich as she looked around the kitchen. There was a box of matches on the counter, and she grabbed those too. This was the longest she'd ever had a flashlight last, and she'd received it with no idea of how full the batteries were when she had found it. At the very least, it might come in handy. She'd never tried lighting a ghost on fire before . . .

There was nothing more on this side of the hallway, so she passed the door to the living room and came to the front door. Nothing over there but a table with a rotary phone on it. The stairs were across from it, and she proceeded upstairs. She was in a more cramped hallway now, with three sliding doors like the doll room. She brandished her flashlight like a sword, in case it was a ghost she'd heard walking around up here.

She grasped the side of one of the doors, taking a deep breath, and—

The doorbell rang.

Maya whipped around, shining her light down the stairway. There was no one there (obviously, since the door hadn't been open). Of course, that was when the problems started. The light began to dim and then flicker. "Oh no no no no NO!" she shouted, hitting the body of the flashlight in the hope that the batteries were just coming loose or something. It continued to flicker.

And then it went dead.

Well, now it was dark.

She'd picked up matches in the kitchen, but she hadn't seen anything she could light in there. She turned back around, resolved to find something in a nearby room, when she realized there was a light emanating from one of the doors.

She approached the room hesitantly, afraid that there was a ghost behind it like there had been the first time. Her sixth sense prickled. She slid the door open, though it would only open a crack.

There was a girl in a kimono and apron kneeling on the floor, praying to the altar set up in front of her. Her head bowed, and her form wavered ethereally before she disappeared. What _didn't_ fade away, however, was the candle she could barely see on the altar. She had matches. Matches + candle = light, right? If she could get in there, she could find a temporary light source until she found new batteries.

She rattled the door harder, trying to get it to open wider than the inch it had, but it wouldn't budge. Dang it, she needed to get in there!

She peered through the opening again, looking around the room. There was a door on the right. She looked in the hallway to her right. There was a door over there. She put two and two together, realizing that the two rooms likely connected through the door inside. She went over to the door on her right, throwing it open in case it put up resistance. It hadn't, and it made a loud crashing noise as it connected with the wall.

The room looked a bit like a spare room, but without light, she couldn't see anything in detail. She ignored the rest of it, opening the door to the altar room and making a beeline for the candle.

Something crashed down to the floor behind her as she entered, but she ignored it, instead picking up the potential light source and felt for the wick. It was there, and it felt fairly fresh. She took the matches from her pocket, lighting one after a few tries (thank goodness that they didn't have a lighter in Kurain Village; she'd had plenty of practice at lighting candles). She transferred the flame to the candle wick expertly, relieved when it began to burn on its own.

Hopefully it would last until she could find more batteries for the flashlight.

She turned to go back to the previous room when something caught her eye. There was a picture on the floor, the frame cracked (that must have been what had fallen, she supposed). The picture inside was of her older sister and a man who looked very familiar . . .

Where did she know him from . . . ?

She gasped. The man in the doll room! The one who had disappeared! Sure, in the picture he was wearing a red shirt instead of a green one, his hair was brown instead of white, and there was no weird visor on his face, but it had to be him!

There was no question that he and her sister had been close. He was seated in an office chair, Mia's arms thrown around him. Her cheek was pressed to his, a beatific smile on her face, a warm smile on his.

She felt herself tearing up suddenly, wiping her eyes with her free hand before picking the picture up. It had been more than ten years since she'd seen Mia last, and she missed her sister dearly, no matter how often she was channeled.

It hadn't escaped her notice that she was in the world of the dead and she hadn't seen the one person she wanted to see.

She extracted the picture from the frame, carefully avoiding the broken glass. She put it in her pocket, surprised when she saw a piece of paper behind the picture. She unfolded it and began to read.

* * *

_Dear Diego,_

_I feel a bit silly, writing a letter to you that you'll never read. I just need to get my thoughts out, and Iris suggested writing a letter, so . . . _

_I'm so sorry. Maybe if I'd been a better lawyer, you wouldn't be in that hospital bed right now. You'd be sitting here next to me, and I wouldn't be writing this letter at all. But I couldn't put her away, and you had to pay the price for my incompetence. I'll never let myself forget that. _

_But don't worry. I got her. The legal system has finally pulled through for us._

_I have a new assistant. He's fresh out of law school, just like I was when we met. His first case was awkward, and it was a close call (I think I was waiting for a guilty verdict during the whole first half), but he managed a not guilty. I'd like to say he won't need me soon, but, well, he still needs a lot of help. I haven't told him about you yet. Visiting you is a special time for me; I already share it with Iris, and that's more than enough._

_Iris. I guess you never met her. She's been really helpful all this time. She reminds me so much of Pearly; she's so sweet. Of course I hope that she's not the only one there when you wake up. Don't want you waking up from your coma only to have a heart attack._

_Please wake up. I still need you._

_I miss you._

_Love,_

_Mia_

* * *

Maya wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, holding the letter to her chest. If Mia could suffer through whatever had happened to this Diego guy, she could make it out of here alive. Her resolve renewed, she slipped the letter into the pocket of her robes and went into the room she'd ignored earlier. If she was going to get out of here, she needed to be thorough in her investigation.

The room looked like it was someone's spare bedroom, though, it was a bit odd that the bed was a futon rather than the traditional Western-style mattress. It reminded her a lot of Kurain Village . . .

She'd called Mia's number in order to arrive here. Was it possible this could be Mia's house?

Maya glanced around, trying to decide if anything looked familiar. She'd only ever visited once, when Mia had moved in with a boyfriend. Mia had cast an eye around the house and whispered to Maya that it definitely needed some work. Her boyfriend had laughed and said, "Whatever you want, Kitten." For some reason, Maya couldn't recall his face.

She resumed her search, moving to the closet. There were blankets for the futon wedged inside, and a tiny wooden piece on the floor that looked so familiar . . .

Something rang, and Maya checked the cell phone before realizing it had to be the rotary phone next to the front door. Every time she had picked up a phone other than the cell, Pearly had been on the other line, and Maya hoped that this time was no exception. She raced out of the room, the wooden piece from the closet still clutched in her hand, and threw herself downstairs. Her hand landed on the receiver, and she picked up the phone. "Hello?"

She could hear sniffling on the other line. _"It's all my fault. All of it. Why did she have to . . . why?!" _The final word had been twisted with grief and anger, enough to make Maya press a hand to her mouth in sympathy. What had happened to Pearl? The line went dead.

A thrill suddenly went up her spine, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling. She turned towards the door, the only direction she couldn't see out of the corner of her eye, only to be met with the sight of Dahlia, one hand poised on her chest. Her form wavered, so ethereal in being that even keeping her shape seemed to be difficult.

"I'm not strong enough," she was saying, though it sounded like it was coming from a tin can. "I can't—" This sounded stronger. Maya took a step toward her cousin, and Dahlia's gaze snapped to hers, recognition blooming instantly. "Maya! Maya, you can't—" Her voice faded again, mouth continuing to move as her body faded completely, and the rest of the sentence was lost.

"D—Dahlia?" she stuttered, almost hoping that she would come back. Company seemed to be hard to come by in this place.

Something crashed from upstairs, and she turned to see a short, squat ghost man rolling down the staircase. He stopped at her feet, pausing, before he moved like lightning, grabbing something in her pocket and darting down the hallway before she could really react. "Hey!" she shouted, running after him, but he was already gone.

What had he taken? She rifled through her pockets, finding everything except for Mia's letter. She sighed, hoping that hadn't been important for her to have later. It wasn't like she was going to be able to get it back from him anyways.

But now what? She had a wooden piece that she recognized as coming from a puzzle box her mother had given Mia back when they were children, but no idea as to where the box actually was. She'd pretty thoroughly searched upstairs; there wasn't going to be much more she could find up there. She was at a bit of a standstill.

"Have to . . . clean . . . the bathroom."

"Huh?" Maya asked, looking around.

"Have to . . . or Mr. Wright will be . . ." The voice was slow and the person seemed to be gasping for air, but Maya had a feeling she knew who it was. There was a tiny bathroom off to her right, and she stepped inside, only to be greeted by a ghost-Apollo scrubbing at the toilet.

"Apollo?" she asked, bending down to his level.

He turned, and she was disconcerted by the normally warm brown eyes that were now glassy and white. "Maya . . ." He said her name so quietly she might have imagined it. "You're . . . here."

"Of course. What are you doing here?" she asked, her arms wrapping around her legs.

"Cleaning . . . the bathroom." He turned back to his task, only to think twice about it, turning back around to look at her. "You . . . shouldn't be here."

"I don't know how to get out. I'm trying, I swear!"

He nodded, and she suddenly realized that his "antennae", as Trucy liked to call them, weren't bowed just because of his mood, but because they were dripping with water. "It's . . . hard to get out . . . of here."

"What happened to you?"

"Some woman . . . I . . . I couldn't breathe. Too much . . . water." He shivered, and Maya huddled backwards instinctively. "Don't go in . . . the bathtub."

Her gaze flickered over to the dark tub. "Apollo, I . . ."

"Just get out of here . . . You have to save her."

"Save who?"

But his eyes, still blank and glassy, seemed to become dead. His head cocked to the side, and suddenly, he shuddered again and vanished.

"Apollo?" she asked, looking around for the young defense attorney hurriedly. "Apollo!" No, he couldn't be gone. She knew him, she'd been to some of his trials, he'd cooked burgers for her . . . He might have been able to help her escape from this place.

She exited the bathroom, chills going down her spine as she looked around in the hopes she'd see him. No luck. She turned to the part of the hallway she hadn't investigated yet, running down it and stopping at the end. The door on her left was partially open, and she could see movement under a blanket on the floor. She pushed it open farther and stopped short.

Mia Fey was curled up on the floor, covered by a blanket and clutching a pillow, her face relaxed in peaceful slumber. She could see her breathe, the blanket covering her sister moving with the expansion and contraction of her lungs.

"Mia?" she asked, taking a few steps forward. Mia's eyes opened, and she gave a beatific smile before starting to fade. "W—Wait!"

"Don't give up yet, Maya," she could hear, the whispered words echoing around the now-empty room. Maya's breath caught, and she stumbled towards where Mia had been reclined, realizing that there was a very familiar puzzle box on the pillow. Once upon a very long time ago, Mia had been obsessed with puzzle boxes, and her favorite, which their mother had given her for Mia's tenth birthday, featured a picture of a black cat.

The wooden piece from the closet was still in her hand, and she knew from memory that the piece would complete the bottom-right corner. Once she finished it, the box would open up.

Mia had left her a clue. Maya could have cried in relief.

She sat down on the futon and solved the puzzle by sliding the pieces to the correct position. She pressed the final piece into the corner, and the box opened with a click. She slid the top off, revealing a piece of paper tucked inside. She opened the note and began to read.

* * *

_Miss Fey,_

_I wanted to thank you for keeping Mr. Armando company. I really do believe you're helping him, and I think he can hear what you're saying, even if he can't say anything back. I know this has all been hard on you. That being said, I'm a bit worried; you've been looking a bit pale lately, and you don't look like you've been feeling well. I'd like to do a consultation and make sure that you're well._

_Here's my personal cell phone number: 997-116-286 Feel free to call me at any time to set something up. In the meantime, make sure to sleep enough hours a night and eat a balanced diet. _

_Wishing you the best,_

_Adrian Andrews_

* * *

Adrian had reached out to Mia? Adrian had _known_ Mia? Since when? Then again, she was offering medical assistance again, and Maya couldn't ever remember hearing Adrian talk about being a nurse.

First Pearly, now Adrian? Something strange was going on here, and Maya had the feeling that she wasn't going to get out until she figured it all out.

* * *

**A/N ::**

**Melody Canta ::**

**Does this ending seem weird to you? Because it seems REALLY weird to me. Regardless, reading the letter is where the chapter cuts off, no joke. I added in the last piece of synthesis to end with something that felt like an ending. That being said, the next chapter IS NOT MINE! You guys are finally going to get to see Shikola's writing prowess (and in much less time than I used, because her chapters are all almost done being written up). But hey, we're coming close to the end of my sections, so that's something?**

**Sorry about the delay in the chapters; we're coming up on Finals, and Shikola recently distracted me with Dangan Ronpa. Plus, with the new Studio Ghibli film . . . there wasn't much of a contest what would get done. I'm working on my next chapter as we speak, and in the meantime, enjoy Shikola's chapter! Also, I'm not a medical professional, so if any of my "diagnosis" of what happened to Maya is implausible, please do tell me. My knowledge comes from Wikipedia.**

**Shikola Krasno ::**

**Hey, Dangan Ronpa (Trigger Happy Havoc for all of you who might go looking for the US version of the game) was a good distraction! It will likely be part of our next work! Of course I won't give you any more hints other than, after this, I don't think I'll ever be allowed to write about Edgeworth again. Just no. And The Wind Rises was a must-see anyways. In our case it was a must-see-twice. . .**

**Anywho, any ghosts you guys didn't recognize? I realize that the faces weren't given much detail, but just imagine who has many faces and you'll get the right idea of who that's supposed to be (if you've played Dual Destinies that should be obvious. If not, well, sorry). Why is Adrian a nurse? Well, we needed a nurse who was nice but kind of annoying and she seemed like a good choice. You'll get another oddly placed not-so-nurse-like character introduced in the second version of my next chapter (OMG YOU GET TO READ MY CHAPTER! FINALLY!). I won't spoil who it is, but they're possibly the most violent ghost encounter of our entire story. Oh yeah! The strange stair thief was supposed to be the tanuki guy in Dual Destinies. Stealing the note seemed nicer than stealing her shoes.**

**On a different note, did anybody else get "the feels" when Melody threw in that Diego and Mia were living together? Part of me doesn't know if that's plausible, but the other doesn't see any other way that the house would work (and just plain wants it to have happened). Also, any opinions on Apollo's tragic note? The side stories are becoming more of a real possibility than just a fantasy and I think I might snatch his story for myself. Fact is Melody's keen on going through alternate endings (there are various deaths that result in some freaky picture messages and a couple of amusing deaths), so maybe I'll make it my goal to fill in the blanks for the others who were actually a part of the nightmare (meaning Athena, Apollo, and possibly Phoenix). But we'll see. Hope you enjoy my chapter with Godot!**


	5. The Return

**Chapter Four :: The Return**

Darkness.

Endless darkness.

Darker than the blackest cup of coffee.

THUD!

And then it wasn't. Then it was a weird swirl of lights, colors, and even some strange sounds.

Godot awoke confused. He was so used to his cot that he recognized the strange feel of a tatami mat immediately. He sat up and felt a blunt pain in the back of his head, almost like he had been struck by something. He tried to feel for a bump and found that his visor was still there. That meant that it was still helping to give definition to his surroundings, but what it showed him seemed extremely unreal. The shelves around him were dripping with soggy noodles and there were things that looked like voodoo dolls crafted out of noodles, each with their own colorful outfits to give them character. "What—?" A particular doll caught his attention and he had a hard time focusing on anything else. "Dolls. . ."

"Um . . . hello?" A young woman with a little topknot and an outdated purple kimono was in the strange room with him, but as familiar as she was, his mind was otherwise occupied at the moment.

"So many dolls. . ." He was having a very hard time grasping what was going on and the mysterious environment wasn't giving him any clues. "Why . . . why dolls?" Still he reached for the one doll that had caught his attention and completely ignored the odd feel of crusty noodles in his hands as he examined it. It was supposed to be a girl in a dark pink kimono of sorts with long black hair and braids that went down from her forehead to her back.

"Hello?" Her voice was a bit louder that time. He knew that she was trying to gain his consideration, but his head was swimming.

"This one. . ." He continued to examine the familiar doll in his hand as he muttered, "it looks like her." After he said it he tried hard to figure out just who he meant. Why did he recognize the doll? Who was she to him? Why couldn't he remember?

"Looks like who?" The girl had it right. The doll didn't matter. He needed to get back to reality and figure out just what was going on. But just as he turned to look at the girl the sound of a cell phone ringing from outside of the room distracted her. "I'll get that door open. Just take it easy for a bit," she told him as she went about the small room frantically, snatching a photo from the table where the dolls were and making her way around to a sliding door that was blocked by a few dolls that didn't seem to be composed of noodles and a strange shadowy presence between them. Looking closely at the picture, the girl reached for a doll and picked it up. Almost instantaneously, the doll vanished, returned to where it had been before, and the dark mass grew larger. It felt somewhat frightening—like it would swallow them whole if it got much bigger. Much to his dismay, she picked up a few more and as they returned to their original positions the mass grew.

He looked over the girl's shoulder at the photograph that she was holding and saw that it showed all of the dolls lined up. Thinking about it he realized that she had been picking up the dolls in the order that they were placed in the picture from right to left. She whimpered a bit before switching around and starting with the doll on the far left side of the photo. This time, the doll vanished without a trace and the dark mass shrank back down to the size that it had originally been. The two of them let out a sigh of relief and she continued to pick up the dolls in the correct order until the mass disappeared altogether and the door slid open on its own. "I'll be right back! Stay here," the girl said before rushing out of the room. As she got further away he noticed that she had a flashlight with her and it was what had been illuminating the room. Without it his visor had to work overtime just to keep things visible.

Godot took a few moments to try to get a grasp on the situation. He knew his name. "Godot," he muttered to himself. "DieGO ArmanDO." He felt better after confirming that for himself, but not much else made sense. He knew that he was wearing a visor and he knew that it was there to help him see, but he had no recollection of what had hindered his vision. As he tried to recall things, he heard creaky door hinges. He looked out at the door where the girl had gone and watched as it closed itself. "Okay . . . do doors normally do that?"

All of the sudden ,he heard the sliding door open at the other end of the small room where the girl had left him. He looked back and was forced to shield his visor from the blinding light. He could just barely make out the shroud of a different woman who felt more familiar to him than the purple kimono girl and the weird doll. The woman motioned for him to follow her and walked into the light. In that moment Godot wanted more than anything to go after her. It seemed so right. Like there was nothing holding him there in that strange room.

But the handle on the door where the girl had left shook as if someone had tried to turn it with no luck.

"PLEASE, MAYA, PLEASE!"

The sharp cry shattered the peace that Godot felt and forced him to look back at the other room where the girl had gone. It didn't sound like she was the one screaming, but there was some sort of struggle going on right on the other side of the door and she could have been in danger. There was no way that he could just leave her behind. So he stood up and went towards the darker door with a sense of purpose pulling him towards it—

And the sliding door that had been opened by moving the eerie dolls slammed shut when he got close.

He tried to force it back open, but it was like it had been cemented in place. He searched the room for a means of breaking through and discovered a cell phone on the floor. He wondered if maybe he could use it to contact the ringing phone that the girl had sought out, but when he flipped it open he saw a familiar image of a black cat in the city.

"Kit . . . ten . . ." he muttered to himself. He knew that the title held a special importance to him, but what it meant escaped his mind. He closed the phone, completely forgetting about the earlier scream, and stepped into the light.

The door seemed to lead outside into a pale forest. Up ahead, the familiar woman looked back at him. He was glad that she had waited. Though he couldn't distinguish her facial features well, he could see that she was wearing business-like attire which made her appear very professional. Encouraged by her sideways glance, he followed her. Walking felt strange—almost like nothing tethered him to the ground—so he didn't dare run. Thankfully the woman kept pace ahead of him and always stopped when he fell behind, giving him that same encouraging look over her shoulder. Though he wanted to focus on the warm radiance that she seemed to cast, Godot couldn't help but examine the strange world around him. Everything was pale and surrounded by light. The trees seemed to be trapped in a state that was neither alive nor dead. Most interesting—if not a little unsettling—were the wisps of smoke that vaguely resembled people. They were everywhere and occasionally he even walked right through a few. The world of light would have been altogether silent if it wasn't for the soft and unthreatening muttering that seemed to come from those wisps.

Godot managed to refocus on the woman only to see her walking into a blinding light. He continued to go after her and the light consumed him briefly only to let him out at the entrance of a hospital with his lovely guide nowhere to be seen. He decided to walk over to the counter to take a moment and consider things, but as he drew closer, he heard a soft yet shrill sound that brought his attention to the empty waiting room chairs. Wait. No . . . not empty. . . Sitting alone in one seat was a girl with her head down. She looked sad. Godot had mixed feelings of sympathy and loathing towards her that he had trouble keeping apart. She looked frail and even beautiful—her hair done in two perfectly symmetrical braids that started from the center of her forehead and went along at a V-shaped angle down just past her shoulders. It was like a soft halo . . . or were they horns? He approached her, hoping to ask her what was going on, but she just faded away when he got close and the sound disappeared with her.

With all of the strange noises gone, Godot became very aware of how quiet things were. It was more than a bit unnerving to be in an unfamiliar place that was more silent than the grave. He turned the corner along the counter slowly and saw that the hospital stretched out into a long hallway. He tried hard to see what was at the end of it only to hear faded sirens as a nurse and doctor wheeled a gurney through. Godot just barely noticed the purple kimono sleeve hanging off the side of the gurney as it drew closer, then he saw the girl from the waiting room seat step out of the way and caught a glimpse of the menacing smile on her face before they all vanished. Godot felt a chill but decided it best to press on.

Figuring that he had to find a clue about his whereabouts somewhere, he decided to check out the first room in the hall. The placard by the door said: "Consultation Room". As soon as his hand touched the knob he felt as if a jolt went through his entire body and a flash of yellow cat eyes went through his mind. He looked down by his feet and saw a black cat with a red bandanna around its neck; just like the one in the picture on the phone he had picked up. It meowed once before actually saying, "She doesn't want you to go into the operating room."

Deep down Godot knew that cats shouldn't appear out of nowhere or speak, but somehow that didn't bother him. Something else _was_ bugging him, however. "That's fine, but the sign says consultation room."

The cat stared at him with its big yellow eyes for a minute before it turned away mumbling to itself. ". . . no matter who I talk to . . . can't read . . . I'm a cat, obviously, why would I be able to read? . . ."

Godot just smirked, somewhat bemused by the strange cat, and proceeded to enter the Consultation room. It didn't seem like anything was odd in there. It looked like a normal consultation room with a prominent desk sitting against the wall. On top of the desk was a clipboard with what seemed from a distance to be notes on the hospital itself. He figured that it would only help to know where he was so he went to pick them up only to have a strange doctor-like creep jump out of the desk and attack him! It caught him by the shoulders with a vice like grip and shook him violently. "This is my hospital!" it cried out with a smug and unforgiving voice. "I swear! It's really my hospital!"

Godot didn't care whose hospital it was; if he didn't get free soon, he'd surely be admitted to it! He used all his strength to force the man off, watching as he faded away with a distant cry of, "I'm the director, really. . ."

Godot's heart raced as he was greeted once again with the serene silence which he had grown a new appreciation for. He rushed back out to the hallway and took a deep breath to clear his head. While the empty hospital was undeniably eerie, it was safe.

It didn't take long for him to decide that he should continue to explore, though from the safety of the halls. Disappearing people didn't seem to attack him there. He found a stairwell where the hallway came to an end and figured that there was nowhere else to go but up. It didn't take him long to discover that going up stairs was even more difficult than just walking around in this strange world; every step made him feel like he might float away so it took more effort than before to stay anchored to the ground. But when he finally reached the second floor, he was greeted with the ringing sound again. He looked down the hall and saw the woman waiting for him. Upon seeing him, she turned away and walked through a door further down the hall. Godot went after her and came upon the room in no time. "I'm really losing it," he mumbled to himself. "She went in without even opening the door."

He glanced up at the placard—Room 204—and touched the door just to confirm that it was, in fact, solid. Then he took a deep breath and touched the doorknob, only to exhale when no cat eyes flashed through his head. He turned the knob and took a step in to find that it was a patient room with four beds set up. The room was quiet and empty for only a moment before the shrill sound returned and suddenly there were two other people sitting at a bed where a man slept. The woman who had been guiding him was sitting on one of the chairs by the bed. He could finally see her face and something about it ripped at his heartstrings. She really was beautiful. Her eyes were sharp and commanding but when he looked hard enough he could see the bags beneath them and it was clear from how red and swollen they were that she had been doing more than her fair share of crying. And yet her soft lips pulled back into a warm smile as she spoke to the other girl in the room. The girl's back was to him so he couldn't see her face, but he recognized the braids in her hair. Without a doubt she was the same girl who had been in the waiting room and the hallway. She seemed to be talking cheerfully with the woman. Godot wished that he could hear was they were saying, but their words sounded like nothing more than the distant muttering of the wisps. Were they friends? At one point the woman looked to the third person—the man sleeping in the bed—and intertwined her fingers with his. Godot finally took the time to examine the man's face. His eyes were closed and he appeared to be sleeping solemnly, almost as if he could wake up at any moment. His hair looked like it hadn't been touched in years and quite a bit of it was blanched, though he hardly seemed old enough to be going gray. What sort of trauma could turn a man's hair so white?

Almost as suddenly as they appeared, the people vanished into the nothingness that the hospital was so full of. "Why do I feel like I know that man?" he wondered out loud. He left the room and heard the shrill sound yet again. He looked just in time to see the faceless version of the woman go into the stairwell. He didn't need to ask where she was going. Something in him just knew that it was up.

So he went up to the third floor, still struggling on the steps, and as soon as he reached the new hall, he saw the woman walk through another door. When he reached it, he read the placard aloud. "Cafeteria? What could she possibly want to show me here?" He went in and the whole room changed this time. Then he saw them. They were sitting at a table together discussing something over coffee. It was the woman, though she looked more vibrant without the bags under her eyes or the stress lines on her face, and the man, though his hair was entirely brown. He looked just as old as he did in the bed, but clearly he was in better health. The man seemed to be frustrated and the woman with him looked deeply concerned. "Come on, man," Godot whispered. "Don't make a girl like that worry." Suddenly Godot noticed the girl with the braids as she walked by the other side of the table. She paused for just a moment and turned her head towards him! He froze in place as he was faced with what could only be described as the look of the devil itself; her eyes so dark and angry and her mouth twisted into an inhuman grin. Godot wanted to warn the man to look over at her, but his voice had left him completely. When the man _did_ turn, she disappeared without a trace before he could even notice. He picked up his coffee mug and downed the whole thing before setting it back down and talking to the woman again. But his words were cut short as he clenched his chest. The woman reached out to him but he pushed her away and stood up, knocking his chair over. He put his free hand on the table to steady himself only to knock the mug off. It shattered on the floor just seconds before the man collapsed in pain. The woman stood over him screaming something that still sounded muffled. Godot clenched his hand over his own chest and trembled. He hadn't even realized it, but he had broken out in a cold sweat just watching the scene. Then he heard the woman as clear as day.

"DIEGO!"

Godot didn't even wait for the people to fade this time. He hurried back out to the hallway and slammed the door shut behind him. His heart was racing even more than when the ghostly director had attacked. "That. . . that was me," he stated as it dawned on him. "I died. . . but I'm not dead? What's happened to me? Why didn't I die?" Just as he caught his breath, he heard a phone ringing at the far end of the hallway. Nothing else seemed to hint at what he should do next and he figured that nothing could be worse than what he had just seen, so he followed the sound all the way to a room labeled "Nurse's Station," found the phone, and took it off the receiver. He thought about speaking but chose not to, worried that whatever was on the other line might recognize him.

"Welcome back," a shrill and demonic voice said, causing his whole body to tense up. "There's nothing you can do to save her. . ."

CLICK.

Godot hung up the phone slowly and tried to grasp the meaning behind the awful message. "Mia!"

It all came together and hit him like a wave against a cliff. The woman, the man, the poisoned coffee, even the hospital. Forgetting how difficult it was to move around, Godot rushed back out to the hallway and ran down the first flight of stairs, back to the second floor. He ran as fast as his legs could carry him, all the way back to room 204 and didn't even hesitate to throw the door open. The room was different now. It looked clean and fresh like he had left it when he first woke from his five year coma. Sitting on the bed where he once slept was something that hadn't been there before. He picked it up and found that it was a picture of him and Mia from back when he first joined his law firm. They both looked so happy. "Kitten. . ."

Godot pulled out the cell phone he had found at the noodle house and dialed her old number without even thinking about it. It rang twice before, to his surprise, someone actually picked up.

"Diego. . ."

There was no mistaking it. It was her.

"You shouldn't have come here. . . But I'm glad you did. . ."

Hearing her voice made his heart sink and he could feel tears welling up beneath his visor. He wanted to talk to her. He wanted so desperately to say the words that he couldn't before. But nothing came out.

"Sorry for all the trouble. . ." she went on. Her gentle voice enveloping him in a soft embrace.

Godot smiled and light filled the room. He could feel her warmth all around him.

"Thank you. . ."

And the world faded into the light.

* * *

**A/N::**

**Shikola Krasno::**

**Voila! I wasn't kidding about my debut in my note back in chapter one. This is actually the first time I've tried my hand at writing fanfiction! Along with Shin's (Larry), Chiyo's chapter is pretty short in the game. And in an interesting side note: the character I replaced with Godot, Chiyo Kishibe, is actually an old woman! X) Mia's character is an old man too! But I had to get over that oddly aged gender-bender quickly since, honestly, the story just worked so nicely for Godot. For anyone familiar with Ace Attorney but not familiar with Godot, I HIGHLY recommend that you play Trials and Tribulations, not for the sake of understanding my story (though it would help), but for the sake of going through the most exciting and emotional trial in the series (which, yes, explains EVERYTHING about Godot). But for all the Godot fans who are upset with me for killing the one guy they so desperately hoped hadn't actually died, you'll definitely want to read on. The twists and turns of this emotional roller-coaster are far from over. Sadly (for me at least), I get to hand things back over to Melody yet again. I wrote more, I swear, it's just that I picked the stuff that all happens later. So for now I'll be passing the baton back to Melody! Hope you guys put up with us through to see my work again in Epilogue 1 (and yes, the 1 is important)!**

**Melody Canta :: **

**Adding to what Shikola was saying, if you know the game, you know we've definitely changed some stuff between Chiyo/Michio and Godot/Mia. And basically most of the characters. To be honest, there's not a lot we ended up keeping, now that I think about it . . . **

**Anyways, this chapter! Yay for Shikola getting a chapter finally! Her chapters will likely post a lot faster than mine did; she had time to work on them. I'm a big Godot fan, and I think she did him justice, so I'm happy with the chapter. This chapter also spawned a lot more jokes than it probably should have . . . Then again, we can't be too serious, can we? And just one note about the game: Shikola makes me play this chapter ALMOST EVERY TIME. I hate this chapter because Chiyo walks so slowly, especially on stairs. Lots and lots of stairs . . . **

**Anyways, next chapter is mine again, and it's a good amount done, so after the extensive beta-ing it'll have to go through (hint: it's a very important chapter), I'll have that posted ASAP.**


End file.
